Last time, the party took an easy morning with Jarvia to get started. While Aurora went to town to get alchemical supplies and some food for breakfast, Brokk and Jarvia chatted over coffee, and Lethanin slept in before starting on some hashbrowns. Aurora returned with supplies to help her gender transition, and Jarvia offered to magically complete Aurora's biological transition; Aurora was hesitant but eventually agreed, and Jarvia played a song to transform Aurora. The party gathered for breakfast and discussed next steps, agreeing to seek out the copper dragon in the mountains, but before they could leave, Wing sent communication that Aurix wasn't entirely convinced of the rightness of repairing the rift, so the party agreed to speak to Aurix first. Aurora teleported them to Aurix's home, and Aurix came to speak with them. Aurix was initially uncomfortable with the idea of closing the rift on the grounds that the world is broken and the leaking magic would make it less broken, but they were convinced by the notion that change must come from within and agreed to help with both the rift and killing Thomas. The party agreed to spend some time in Torga and meet with Aurix again that evening to be sent to the mountains to find the copper dragon, who Aurix explained was a man named Rupert who they had helped fight an incarnation of Gruumsh. The party appeared just outside of Torga's gates.
This time, I went in with a simple plan. First, following Aurora's player's suggestion, I decided to throw some basic low-level enemies at the party in the form of some highwaymen on the way into town. I also knew that since the party was in Torga, where Aurora was based before the campaign began, I could send a mercenary from her original home in Pelor's Mercy to further the plotline that people from that place were still looking for her. With that in mind, this session began with five highwaymen interposing themselves between the party and Torga on the road. Brokk intimidated the highwaymen, and a few of them were so fearful that they started to back down, but one brave highwayman emboldened the others by insisting he would fight Brokk personally. At this, Aurora cast the same spell on the highwaymen that she cast on Hyrum the bounty hunter in her intro session, leaving three of them writhing helplessly on the ground. Lethanin played a song played a disturbing song to unnerve the remaining two highwaymen, who ran off into the woods. Brokk grabbed the leader of the highwaymen and dragged him to the city gates to leave him with the guards posted there; the guards anxiously agreed to collect the other two downed highwaymen. Aurora pretended that Brokk was a noble of sorts, calling him "Lord Muscles" and pretending to be a courtier of his, and Lethanin played minstrel music as they entered town.
It may seem like this encounter was quite a breeze in terms of difficulty. The highwaymen never got off a an attack, and they all fell or fled very quickly. But that was actually the aim. Last time, I wrote this:
I was chatting about the campaign with Aurora's player, and I asked if she felt like things were going well, if she was having fun. And she said that yes, she is having fun, but also, Aurora is level 13 and yet feels very underpowered. Dealing with dragons who are more than twice Aurora's level and gods who are even more advanced makes Aurora feel somewhat weak. And this was not my intention as the DM. I wanted to make combat solutions to dragon problems difficult and complicated to encourage roleplaying, but I never wanted the party to feel useless. So I asked Aurora's player what might help. She said that a combat encounter with average people (who would of course be well below the party's level) would be really interesting as a way to flex the party's abilities and remind them that they're actually quite powerful.
The goal was actually to remind the players that they are powerful even if they're surrounded by people more powerful than them. In this encounter, Brokk got to scare the pants off several of the highwaymen, Aurora got to show her spellcasting prowess (something she had only done outside of combat up to this point, since this was the whole campaign's first glimpse of combat), and Lethanin got to show off his spellcasting in a fun way. In the space of a five-minute encounter, the party was quickly and firmly reminded that they were all powerful beings and do a little good by making the road safer. This was accomplished without a slog through dense combat that lasted half the session, and it accomplished what a player specifically asked for. Each of the players got to shine in their respective ways, and we got to preserve our most roleplaying style. In fact, I would argue that the players got chances to roleplay through the combat given that all of them chose unique ways to non-lethally dispatch the highwaymen. I wouldn't have done this on my own, so the suggestion from Aurora's player was really invaluable, and listening to it made this moment possible.
Once in town, Aurora led the party to the Mortar and Pestle, the alchemy shop where her adoptive mother Heather works. Heather and Aurora had an emotional reunion, and Aurora introduced her to Brokk and Lethanin as friends. Aurora decided to get to making dinner for the party and Heather, and on the way upstairs to the kitchen, Brokk and Lethanin spotted the backyard of the shop/home through a window at the top of the stairs. In the backyard, they saw a highly realistic statue of Aurora and Heather hugging. Lethanin was, in a phrase, weirded out, saying that families tend not to be so close that they memorialize their relationships. Brokk was more confused than anything; since he didn't have a traditional family, the idea of such a close relationship was odd to him--he only knew family dynamics through the many books he read. Lethanin pointed out that something seemed off given that Heather was a halfling and Aurora a human, meaning that it was unlikely Aurora was Heather's offspring.
This moment was really beautiful to me. I think it really reveals the potential for roleplaying as a style of gaming. Aurora gets to reunite with her mother, which is emotional and sweet, and then we get to see Lethanin struggle with his own complicated family relationships and see Brokk in a new light--not the hardened wisdom we're used to, but pure and genuine lostness in the face of not understanding something very simple and almost universal. It was a showcase for everyone to get to display a part of their character that hadn't really been addressed yet, and everyone was different and profound in their own way. Aurora's close relationship with Heather shows part of why Aurora is so hopeful and sweet; Lethanin's distance and occasional bitterness is spoken to as informed by his distance from his own family; and Brokk's lack of understanding of the situation shows that his pain is not just from being forced to fight in a gruesome war--he also lacked even the opportunity to be meaningfully loved in his childhood. This is what I live for as a DM, and you'll notice that I had essentially no part in it--this was just the players expressing their characters in a way that felt true to them. This is the beauty of a quiet moment in the game. You never know what character moments will come out of it.
While Aurora cooked, Brokk asked about her family, and he was confused by what the notion of adoption really meant. Aurora tried to explain, and Lethanin poked around in the home as Aurora said that Heather was there for her when she was lost and confused, which made more sense to Brokk. The discussion of adoption led to a discussion of how Aurora's magic works--the adoption papers had been drawn up through Aurora's glyphs, and Aurora explained the sort of grammar required to make a spell make sense; to illustrate, she cast a spell that made a mug frosty on the condition that Brokk picked it up. Brokk was surprised and somewhat pleased when the spell worked as intended, and he discussed the family in his life--the demon "father" he was born of as a combination of an orc and a demon, though he didn't exactly know his father in any meaningful sense. Brokk also described the man who raised him, who Brokk said treated him as more a tool than a child.
Aurora explained that a Daltoner called Hyrum had come looking for her after she found a life with Heather, and that upon being confronted by Hyrum, she had peered into his memories to determine how he knew her. [This was covered in Aurora's intro session.] This caused Brokk to realize suddenly that Hyrum had known Aurora before her memories disappeared, before she had any knowledge of who she was and had to start over. As a DM, this moment was hard to read. Brokk and even his player were very reserved about this, but I detected a kind of discomfort, as though it was really hitting Brokk that Aurora had lived a whole life before she became who she was now. This suggested that Brokk and perhaps also Lethanin were unsure of what to do with Aurora, this young person who had only a vague idea of what came before her memories. But Aurora seemed oblivious to this and described her knowledge of where she believed she had come from, a place to a river diverged into two. She summoned a map of Evanoch and looked for places this occurred, specifically looking for Daltoner territory--she found three likely candidates and two other outside chances. Lethanin mentioned the globe he'd witnessed during his intro session, which very much vexed the others, though they all voiced interest in visiting the owner of the globe for more information.
They all sat down to dinner, and Brokk suggested a plan: after killing Thomas, he wanted Aurix to bestow the red dragonhood on Brokk, who would then remove himself from society and keep a more evil person from taking the mantle. He reasoned that he could make up for the wrong he did during the War of Kraal and prevent more evil from happening. Neither Aurora nor Lethanin was enthusiastic about this plan. Lethanin didn't disagree, calling it "not the stupidest plan I've ever heard," but he also wouldn't offer more support than that. Aurora said it was a good plan but found it very sacrificial, saying Brokk deserved better than sentencing himself to immortal exile. Brokk accepted their tentative agreements and said he wanted to speak to Niela again since she likely had more insight on how to go about the plan. Brokk also noted that he was uncomfortable with Niela having dragonhood--she was not distinctly evil but also certainly not good; at the same time, he highly respected the care and perspective she had as someone willing to vulnerably restrain herself to protect them, which a truly evil person would not do.
Just then, Heather called from downstairs that a stranger said he had business with Aurora. This caused the party, especially Aurora, to grow very tense. Brokk crept halfway downstairs and asked what business the man, a haggard bearded human in fine armor who called himself Hromar, had with Aurora. Hromar said he specifically wanted to talk with Aurora about business related to her past. A very intense exchange ensued: Aurora wanted to know his business before coming to speak to him; Hromar suggested that Heather accompany them for the conversation; Brokk grew uneasy and forcefully suggested Hromar come clean; Aurora said to talk in the garden out back without Heather. Eventually, Hromar and the party assembled outside, and Aurora insisted that Heather lock herself inside until they were done talking.
When pressed, Hromar said he had come from Pelor's Mercy to bring Aurora home. He said that before she'd lost her memory, they had been friends who worked together in the "north camp." He said Aurora had helped to keep "misbehavers" in line. Aurora panicked and launched into combat, starting the first real fight of the campaign. Brokk acted first, striking Hromar with eldritch blasts that shot through Hromar's armor and knocked him back into the state of Aurora and Heather with so much force that it split the statue in two. (This was a fun symbolic moment--Aurora's dangerous past coming to Heather's doorstep literally put some separation between them.) Lethanin acted next, playing a song to calm Hromar and Aurora, and the spell did give them pause even if it didn't stop combat entirely. Hromar tried one more time to plead his case as he poised to throw his sword at Aurora, saying he and Hyrum had worked with Aurora, that they'd shared old days together and spit on nonbelievers, that he knew Aurora wasn't a confused girl and that somewhere deep down, she remembered her past. At the notion that Aurora was not "a confused girl," she grew enraged and cast a spell at him. A rippling blast of blackish purple light tore into Hromar, disintegrating his armor and furs and turning his entire body into a pile of ash and dust. While Lethanin and Brokk marveled and were repulsed by Aurora's spell, Aurora began to panic knowing that the people in her past knew where Heather was. Brokk said that his home in Drumchapel was far, far away, and that Heather could hide out there until the coast was clear. Aurora agreed but then was suddenly gripped by new visions.
In Aurora's mind, she saw herself hanging out with Hromar and Hyrum, patrolling prison camps and menacing prisoners. She saw Hromar and Hyrum beating prisoners, and then to her horror, she saw herself beating prisoners too. Suddenly, she saw where the bloodstains on her wooden sword had come from--a victim who she'd beaten badly enough to draw blood. She struggled to breathe and panicked more before seeing the mysterious man with the crimson sun pendant calling to her with a name she couldn't comprehend. The visions ended, and she panted and heaved on the ground, horrified by what she had seen. As she tried to collect herself, she heard ABC's voice in her mind: "I told you you would want to do me a favor. Destroy Pelor's Mercy."
Aurora continued to panic, saying she was a member of the Daltoner cult and that she had done terrible, terrible things. Brokk tried to calm her, telling her she was a good person now and that she could leave that past behind. At Aurora's asking, Brokk and Lethanin agreed to help destroy Pelor's Mercy and save the prisoners there, saying that once the rift had been closed, they would begin preparing to destroy the camps and town. Aurora left her wooden sword at the broken statue and went to speak with Heather, struggling to confront that fact that her mother had seen her disintegrate a man from the window above and asking her to go to safety in Drumchapel. Heather agreed and packed some clothes, books, and holy items of Yondalla. Meanwhile, outside, Lethanin and Brokk expressed shock that Aurora was capable of such things given her apparent sweetness and the implications of what Hromar and Aurora had said. Lethanin remarked that Brokk was surprisingly good with the "touchy-feely stuff"--Brokk shrugged and said he'd merely told Aurora what he needed to hear himself. Heather came outside, and while Aurora summoned a portal to Brokk's house, her wooden sword again at her hip, Heather thanked Brokk for his help. She gave Aurora one more hug and told her nothing had changed--she would always love Aurora, who would always be sweet and kind--then stepped through the portal into Brokk's home, where she petted Brokk's dog, Dog. The group agreed to go to investigate the globe Lethanin mentioned and decided to rest for a moment.
That's where we ended this session. When this moment wrapped up, we had half an hour of remaining time before the time we normally wrapped up, but given the heaviness of the session's second half and the general low energy of the players, I asked if we wanted to call it a night early or do just a bit more, tackling the globe. They all responded they'd rather call it a night for a collection of reasons: out of game, we were all a bit demoralized by real-life situations (check the date of this session's notes), we were worn out by the weight of Aurora's situation in-game, and we know that a short moment often becomes a long one given how we roleplay. I recommend checking with your players in situations like this rather than making an executive decision without consulting them. As always, treat the game like a collaboration rather than a DM-led project.
Looking ahead, I once again have very little to project. I know they'll be going to talk to Tasselman about his globe (this was a thing from Listen Check, my D&D podcast, that got revisited in Lethanin's intro session), but I don't really know what they mean to learn or do there. I generally suspect that they'll afterwards rejoin with Aurix and head to find the copper dragon, but of course a million things could happen before they get there--a simple dinner at Heather's ended up very dramatic and took up about two hours of the session. So once again, I don't have much to plan with at all. And that's a good thing! If I had a plan every session, it would mean I was taking the reins instead of letting the players guide it. Having no plan means the players are completely in charge of the story, which is what I want. So huzzah for having no plan!
One thing that I want to draw into focus here is how Aurora's very focused story in this session actually didn't dominate the other players or characters. Brokk and Lethanin as characters were not nearly as fleshed out as Aurora going into the campaign--Brokk was a tired old war veteran trying to live a quiet life, and Lethanin was a mischievous musician who loved to travel. Beyond that, only some basic attitudes existed for them, and their pasts were not entirely defined. This was not a problem, though. The emphasis of this campaign has been on moving forward, so those outlines were enough to go on. Aurora, on the other hand, was pretty detailed before even her intro session. Aurora's player knows how to guide her in almost any given situation from references to her past. In some situations, especially selfish roleplaying, that could monopolize the game.
But in this case, it doesn't. Aurora's carefully-defined backstory and personality isn't pushed into center stage repeatedly by either me or Aurora's player. And as we saw with this session, Brokk and Lethanin came more into focus with the prompting of Aurora's. Think about the family conversations. Brokk never really talked about family before this session. Lethanin exhibited discomfort around his mother, but didn't say anything about family beyond that interaction. But when Aurora and Heather were shown being emotionally close, it prompted Brokk to confront his issues and Lethanin to discuss family beyond his own troubled relationships. This means that now, we all know Brokk is more isolated and alone than he'd admitted, and Lethanin doesn't just struggle with his family but also doubts the closeness of any family. That's huge! Brokk and Lethanin became more defined because they had Aurora's experience to bounce off of, and that's not a reflection for better or worse on any of the players--it's a way that the collaboration benefits everyone. Aurora has more complete party mates to talk to, Brokk and Lethanin are more fleshed out, and I as DM have more to work with in terms of how people feel and interact in the game. This is the spirit of collaboration--any one contribution can become more and more and more as long as we all add to it. So kudos to all three players for adding something very cool to the game.
Next time, I don't know what will happen. We play with two weeks between sessions, and all kinds of ideas and brainstorming can happen in those two weeks that might bring up a new plan or player/character interest. It's impossible to say what next session might hold. What I know for sure is that things are changing. The party has spoken to all the dragons who are likely to agree with them, they need to start looking to the gods (which will be quite a different task), Aurora's backstory is pretty much entirely restored to her (meaning Aurora's player will be relatively off-script for the rest of the campaign, which will be a new challenge for her), Brokk and Lethanin are getting more complex every session, and they all have broad and far-reaching plans to prepare for and execute. The context-building phase has been fading away in favor of the meat of the campaign, and I think from here out, there's not going to be really anything in the way of establishing a foundation--it's full steam ahead from here out. With that in mind, I'm eager to see what happens as my players decide how to navigate the many big tasks ahead.
Until next time, happy gaming!