Last time, the party managed to convince Rupert to help in opposing the chromatic dragons when Lethanin suggested Rupert love himself and spend more time doing things that matter. While Aurora created a spell to teleport the group to Brokk's house in Drumchapel, Brokk encountered Moira again, and the discussed feeling like a spectator in life and serving the greater good. Aurora's spell brought the group to Drumchapel, where they rested for the night. In the morning, they discussed their plans, focusing on the ordering of the delicate steps to bring down Thomas the red dragon and speaking with Boccob. On the road to Finiel, where they planned to meet Hriskin, the brass dragon, they encountered an elven traveler named Cori who mused about siding with the known versus the unknown; Aurora requested an audience with Cori after her business in town was concluded. The group agreed that Cori was likely Corellon Larethian, the goddess of the elves. Arriving at the Finiel Arena, the group searched the hall of fame for information about Hriskin and learned she was the greatest legend of the fighting ring who was known for never killing a foe. Using a series of spells, the group found their way to Hriskin's cottage, and she reluctantly allowed them inside to talk.
This time, we picked up at the beginning of that conversation. Out of game, a month had passed since our last session, and I had had time to mull over how I wanted that conversation to go. Initially, I had planned for Hriskin to be something of a counterpart to Rupert--Rupert was wild and manic, and he was hard to wrangle into helping with anything because his particular dysfunction came from paranoia and an excess of emotional energy, and Hriskin was the opposite--depressed about her life to the point of giving up on everything, giving no effort in any way because of a lack of emotional energy. But the extra time between sessions was a benefit. Talking to the metallic dragons, the party has joked, is about therapizing the dragons. They helped Aurix sees nuance more clearly. They helped Jarvia feel less like a forgotten outsider. They helped Wing to deal with her own demons. They helped Rupert past his complex. And I had originally conceived of Hriskin as another therapy session--how do they make Hriskin less depressed?
But I had an idea a few days before the session. I'd established a pattern by making the conversations with the dragons about helping them with their issues, so the party was expecting Hriskin to be the same. That meant that I could offer a surprise here by altering the script. I decided that Hriskin's initial depression was made worse and more permanent by a curse, and who better to lay that curse than one of the chromatic dragons? So the party's first instinct would be to identify Hriskin's depression as conditional--based on her lived experience--when they needed to look deeper and see the curse. Knowing that they'd grow tired and even desperate with Rupert's refusal to listen, I knew this could go many ways, but I was eager to spring something new and more interesting on the group. So how'd it go?
Hriskin sat sadly on her couch and barely followed the conversation. She spoke about her passed husband and how she hated having to see him suffer and die while she remained ageless, and when Brokk asked her about the value of marriage, she said it was worthless. Lethanin explained the prophecy in an effort to bring Hriskin into the know, but she was skeptical, bemoaning the notion that the party was crazy. Aurora asked about the last time Hriskin had cared about something after her insistence that she didn't care about anything; she said the day she'd been visited by a menacing man after her husband's death had changed her. Brokk grew frustrated with Hriskin's seeming unwillingness to focus on anything but her pain and left. Hriskin voiced her irritation at being forced to remember the menacing man, who she said had wolfish eyes and wore a blue suit. Lethanin suggested that the man had potentially cursed her, and when Hriskin snapped at Aurora's attempts to help, they argued, and Aurora ended up marching out of the cottage as well. Lethanin pressed on about the blue-suited man, and Hriskin said he was a lawyer from New Dalton and knew nothing else; Lethanin pressed her further and was also kicked out.
This is to say, I seeded enough information about the blue-suited man to plant the idea of the curse, which Lethanin picked up on, but I maintained an honest representation of how little Hriskin would suffer the party's directness and lack of sympathy. Fortunately (though the party could have proceeded without Hriskin if they so chose), they didn't entirely give up on her. Aurora in particular hinted at grand plans to make Hriskin feel better and pursue a cure for the curse. In fact, after updating Jarvia on finding Hriskin, Aurora began sending messages to the the allied dragons seeking information about breaking the curse. Niela explained that the magical seal of the dragon would need to be lifted before the curse could be targeted directly (an improvised detail that I thought complicated the situation without making it impossible), and Aurix provided a complicated glyph spell that could cure Hriskin--a spell which needed to be modified so that Aurora could cast it without Aurix's immense power. Brokk said he stood by his tactics and that challenging Hriskin to move on had been for the best, adding that he wasn't happy to say it, but the party didn't need her help. Lethanin countered that they were in a position to help her and therefore should, which Brokk agreed to, saying he had been unfair because he resented powerful people who choose to do nothing.
Content that they had done all they could for now, Aurora checked in to see if Brokk was comfortable meeting with Cori, who they suspected was the elven goddess; Brokk was unwilling or unable to answer directly aside from the notion that it was happening either way he felt. They arrived at the Empty Stage, the tavern Cori had suggested. Cori said the play had been good--the ending had been inevitable and yet surprising, as the powerful characters in the play chose selfish ends while the underdogs chose what was right for everyone. Tired of the double-talk, the party began to explain their role in the prophecy to Cori. She immediately cut them off and suggested speaking more privately. She escorted them to an inn room from which she teleported them all to her temple in the gods' realm, a massive library overgrown with plants, and where she appeared in her true godly form as Corellon Larethian. She explained she was well aware of the prophecy and had sought them out to secure their assistance in repairing the veil, which she believed would uphold the balance of the world. The party asked which gods might also help them, and she suggested Wee Jas, who had lost power due to the rift; Obad-Hai, whose focus on balance would mean returning things to their natural state; and Gruumsh, who she explained was her partner--together, she and Gruumsh had parented the elven and orcish races.
This sent Brokk into a panicked state. Discovering that the elves and orcs were in reality siblings, that Gruumsh and Corellon Larethian had fought long ago but patched things up millennia ago, and that the war he had been born to fight had been a product of people, not gods, was too much for him to handle in the moment. Brokk excused himself to a corner to do breathing exercises and lobbed flurries of questions about the nature of elves and orcs through the conversation. Corellon Larethian was patient with Brokk's meltdown and continued speaking with Aurora and Lethanin, ultimately agreeing to help remove the curse on Hriskin via prayer. When asked, Corellon Larethian also suggested using prayer to contact the other gods the party meant to work with. Once Brokk had calmed and Aurora and Lethanin's questions were answered, Corellon Larethian teleported the party back to the mundane world in the inn room in Finiel.
Still worked up, Brokk insisted that he needed to sleep (despite his character build explicitly stating that he does not need to sleep--this was a cool choice by Brokk's player to roleplay his panic). Brokk got a room to try to sleep in, and Aurora and Lethanin went back to the arena's hall of fame to find more information on Hriskin. Aurora wanted to make a nice breakfast for Hriskin, and Lethanin learned that Hriskin's victory meal after fighting was potato cakes. Meanwhile, Aurora learned about Hriskin's husband, Chellin Plantil, the most famed announcer of the arena's history--she learned that he would end matches by announcing "That's how the blood spills," or in Hriskin's non-violent wins, "That's how the blood doesn't spill." Content with their findings, Lethanin and Aurora went to find ingredients for tomorrow's breakfast and commission a brass locket with "That's how the tears no longer fall" etched on it. Meanwhile, unable to sleep, Brokk went out and met up with Aurora and Lethanin, at which point Aurora and Lethanin collaborated on a spell to create an image of Hriskin and Chellin holding hands, which they planned to put into the locket with an enchantment so that only Hriskin could see the image. The group called it an early night, eager to see what the morning would bring.
In the morning, the group picked up Hriskin's locket and added the created image to it, took the breakfast ingredients, and set off for Hriskin's. Hriskin let the party in even more reluctantly than the day before, but she softened a bit when she saw Aurora making potato cakes for her. Lethanin suggested that the group could try to remove the curse from her; Hriskin considered while devouring potato cakes and ultimately agreed to let them try assuming they'd leave her alone if there was no curse to fix. Lethanin played a rousing bagpipe song, inspiring Aurora to break the seal of the blue dragon they had suspected was affecting Hriskin, and Brokk removed the curse from her. Hriskin immediately felt better if a bit overwhelmed by the change in her emotional state. Brokk challenged her to a wrestling match to "shake off the dust," which Hriskin took him up on, swiftly and decisively pinning Brokk in a matter of moments. Hriskin said that she owed the party her life, and she offered to help in any way she could, eager to fight Thomas if that's what they needed from her. The party shared some kind words with Hriskin and left, which is where we ended this session.
From a DM perspective, I'm really happy with the change of plans I had with Hriskin. The essence of what makes a story fun sometimes comes down to surprise. Discovering that the metallic dragons are actually all somewhat dysfunctional was a surprise. Learning the new ways that the dragons were dysfunctional became the new flavor of surprise as the campaign went. But Hriskin would have felt stale as just a hopelessly depressed widow, another way that a metallic dragon was emotionally at odds with their life. Shifting the cause to a curse broke that pattern up and created a new surprise, and having the conversation broken up into two separate scenes really underscored just how much they had to work at solving her problem. Speaking of surprise, the most animated moment of the session was learning that Corellon Larethian and Gruumsh were not only allies but lovers--Brokk really reacted to this reveal in a big way that had the whole group riveted and laughing. So I'm glad I twisted the Hriskin situation a bit to create more surprise.
I talk about this particular strategy as a DM a lot, and I'm gonna talk about it again here: only write outlines. When we write fully orchestrated scenes, we're likely to decide how they go before the players ever get to them. That's prime territory for railroading. Instead, write a few big picture moments that you might use and pick a theme or two to return to as you go. I could honestly fit all my pre-writing for the entire campaign in a space shorter than this session recap. A week ago, I had exactly the following decided:
Hriskin Geld is a lawful good former arena champion whose husband, the announcer at the arena, died, sending her into depressive turmoil. She would choose to undo dragonhood if given the opportunity.
That's it! A few days before playing, I added the detail that the depression was cursed to stay indefinitely by Horton, the blue dragon, who would (1) have an interest in weakening the metallic dragons, and (2) be able to bestow such a curse. So basically three sentences are the only things that guided this session-long arc, and that allowed me to shift the encounter to be what would most enrich my players' experiences. Brokk lost his temper with Rupert and with Hriskin too for similar reasons, and seeing him (a normally calm and understanding guy) grow impatient with someone in pain cast Brokk in a new light. Aurora's big heart made her want to do whatever she could to help Hriskin, which she did in the end, but when Hriskin was dismissive of Aurora, Aurora grew frustrated and also conceded for a while--a very new side of her. Lethanin, as he had with Rupert, kept prodding and poking until he figured something out, leading to the breakthrough that got Hriskin on their side, and in the same session that Lethanin joked his main skill is "pissing people off." All of this to say, I came in with some very broad strokes and let the party fill in the rest, merely maintaining some consistency in how I felt Hriskin would act. I think that this ultimately achieved what I was hoping for--a situation that was interesting, surprising, and open to the players to guide.
Let me also say that the final scene with Hriskin was truly heartwarming. Aurora led the charge to make Hriskin feel better; out of game, I've been fighting some demons of my own, and Aurora's player--my wife--has been helping me through it. And seeing Aurora make potato cakes and a thoughtful locket and offer nothing but compassion to Hriskin was genuinely touching. I could see my wife's sweetness coming through in Aurora, something that happens often (think of the monuments she makes to important emotional situations), and it was really beautiful to see. By the time that the party was talking to the real Hriskin, now free of her curse, it was a really nice conversation.
One final note here now that you, the reader, and the party too have met all the metallic dragons--they are all very personal to me. Aurix sees the world in black and white terms, often struggling to see beyond the right and wrong he perceives; this is something I too struggle with, and I made him to be able to put some of my real life issues into the game so he'd seem more real in his struggles. Jarvia deals with complicated feelings about being transgender and outcast, just as I do. Wing can't let go of the voices she keeps with her from her past any more than I can. Rupert could get carried away and self-destructive and shortsighted just like I can. And Hriskin was hung up on grief she couldn't let go, sinking into a long and painful depression that immobilized her; this too is something I have fought with. I mention this because a few paragraphs ago I was talking about how little preparation I did going into these sessions--it wasn't all acting. It wasn't all improvised. I deliberately picked struggles I know about personally so I could make them real. And I think that having a real emotional experience with a vague collection of information about the situation will always be better than a fabricated emotional experience with loads of preplanning. Storytelling is seldom about a group of details; it's so often a portrayal of an experience, and an emotional understanding of that situation means more than you might think. Imagine two classes on archaeology, one taught by a tax attorney and one taught by an archaeologist--which one is more likely to give you something meaningful? The old writer's advice--write what you know--holds true in tabletop games too.
This session marks a real turning point in the campaign. The metallic dragons--all five of them--are united at least in cause. The group even has Niela's help on the side of the chromatic dragons, and that means that they have six dragons as well as their own power to turn on Thomas and deal with the gods. Speaking of which, the group has now directly spoken to a god about how to proceed. They also have leads on three more gods to work with. That basically means that one phase of the campaign is over (gathering metallic dragons together) and now things are even more nebulous than before--what goal comes next? How do the players interact with the fickle gods? Will they take their time with the gods as they did with the dragons or race to Boccob? More than ever, I have no idea what will happen next time.
That's all for now. Until next time, happy gaming!
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