Of Gods and Dragons: Session Twelve - Boccob and The Song

Last time, the players curated an eventful session for themselves, and I decided to sit back and let them take the reins a bit more. The result was some big progress for the group, as they each sat down to pray to a god to seek help reaching Boccob. Aurora prayed to Wee Jas and discovered that Wee Jas would help to a point in order to get her powers back but would not fight, and Lethanin got similar results with Obad-Hai; Brokk received full support for Gruumsh. Yondalla pitched a more complex solution to the problem, but the party rejected it on the grounds that it would violate free will. Then they leapt into action, called on the gods, and were sent to Boccob's realm, where they beheld a massive geometric tower and a daunting, huge furry reptilian creature they knew to be Boccob. 

So before we start with this session, let's address a few things that contribute to the stakes of this session. Firstly, they're starting by talking to Boccob. This necessarily means that the prophecy will be fulfilled somehow by the conversation's end, and that's a massive thing. The original end goal of the campaign was the speak to Boccob, and they've done that now. I think that shifts the tone in this session moving forward in that it means we're looking to narrow the story now rather than expand it (at least in most cases). And that starts here--I made a point of only adding things that really needed to be added and am otherwise focused on moving forward toward an ending. Second, when given the option to speak to more gods and explore that world, the players chose to just go to Boccob. That's something that is complicated for me since I wrote a lot of foundational material that may now be useless, but it's what the players chose, and I want to honor that. So moving forward, it's looking to the end, and really looking to let the players decide the scope. 

So, this session, Boccob began by trying to explain a problem. Boccob said that once many years ago, a woman of his species had lived a remarkable life and taken up magic as a retirement hobby, creating an entire little world. This world grew and changed over many years, the creation of physical realms, gods, people, and dragons a regular thing. Then this woman grew old, and she--Boccob--asked her son to care for the world for her. So he had become Boccob and watched over the world for far longer than his mother had overseen it. He wished to give their world away and be free to watching it but being helpless to change it. At this, the party asked what he meant, and he explained that Boccob's key for manipulating the world was to play the violin, and he could not. Quickly, the group hatched a plan that Lethanin would play his violin to magically manipulate the world and repair the barrier between the gods and the mundane world. 

Aurora cast a spell to recreate part of the Song, the grand musical experience that Lethanin has always sensed and which they suspected to be the original Boccob's song. Lethanin played along with the song, trying to tap into the exact melody that would work, and he eventually found it. He became ecstatic in the performance of the Song and managed to close the rift. Boccob asked about fixing other things while given the chance, and the party was unwilling to use their position of power to make unnecessary choices for people. Brokk asked Boccob about future concerns such as where the world would go, and Boccob could say only that he was working on a solution. Wild with the Song, Lethanin took a piggy back ride on Brokk. Aurora created a crystal which could play the Song in case another hero needed to play it in the future. Boccob confirmed that they were in fact successful and teleported them to Aurix's halls. 

With some time to come down from the dramatic moments at Boccob's, the group took time to try to rest. Aurora spoke to Pumpkin, her cat, about the disrepaired state of the world forlornly for a time while Brokk and Lethanin simply came down after dealing with a supreme deity and encountering a life's mission. Suddenly, the faerie who gave Aurora her powers (ABC), appeared to Aurora and asked her to destroy Pelor's Mercy, providing a vision that Aurora was the child of the head of the town, who regards Aurora as his son. At this point, Niela sent a message with important information. She said that there were not ten dragon titles as currently inhabited, but actually thirty--ten metallic, ten chromatic, and ten elemental--and the majority had been killed long ago. This meant that the group could appoint a large amount of dragons as they saw fit, but this led to a conversation in which the group questioned whether dragons should exist at all given the imbalance of power their existence creates. Brokk and Aurora voiced disappointment in the difficulty of finding a solution, but Lethanin said it was unavoidable: "I think this world just always needs saving." After resolving Niela's issues--agreeing to mostly leave it on the back burner but taking interest in the Sound dragon for Lethanin's sake--Brokk and Lethanin agreed they would help Aurora with Pelor's Mercy. 

In terms of more immediately strategy, the group hatched a plan in which Niela would contact Thomas looking for details on his planning. She would surveil him from up close while Aurix performed reconnaissance from afar. Together, they'd get a sense of Thomas's intentions and preparations, then turn on him when the time came. So while Niela and Aurix prepared to work on Thomas, the group decided to investigate the tome which would allow them to find access to the Sound dragon, which Aurora had determined was at the peak of the Kallett Mountains. And that's where we ended.

So, DMs, what really comes next? I said in an earlier session notes that narrowing towards an ending changes a lot in terms of pacing and content, so what does that look like in practice? Well, for starters, we need to remember what we have left. The party wants to deal with Thomas. That's not a small goal. They're interested in the Sound dragon now, which won't be as complicated as Thomas, but it will be more than minor. Aurora's Pelor's Mercy thing is now totally revealed, and that's gonna be at least a session or two. Brokk and Lethanin need some sweet send-off stuff. Beyond that, not much really comes to mind, save for one important thing: 

Consequences. 

The players just changed the shape of the universe. There will be consequences. I am not saying bad consequences per se. I'm just saying consequences. The fabric of time and space shifted, and there will be little ripple effects of that. Maybe it's just a fun side effect. Maybe it's the kind of thing that needs to be treated. I dunno. We'll figure that out as we continue. But it's something to consider. So Thomas, other dragons, Pelor's Mercy, epilogue stuff, and consequences. On the whole, a not inconsiderable list of things to get to. 

So we take them as the players get to them primarily, and if they drop something for a while, we pick those threads back up. Next time, they'll do the Sound dragon thing and check in with Aurix and Niela, I would bet, and maybe get distracted with something else for a bit. Just a guess. So we explore that, and all the while, I'm looking for opportunities to drop the other stuff in. We limit how much new stuff there is when the players aren't seeking it. It's just a simple way to start pushing towards an ending. 

I want to address Boccob's story a bit. Going into this session, I had a lot of options. Boccob could have been as I always imagined them: aloof, overly rational, quiet, emotionless. They could have been like a strange parent figure from a distance. They could have been a scientist in a lab experimenting on the people of the gameworld. But I didn't really like any of those. Boccob as an aloof figure felt one-note; everything would just be rationality. The parent figure would be nice but wouldn't explain why they're more or less abandoned the world. The scientist thing is funny and fits well, but the tone is wrong--the world isn't a dark joke, it's something tragic and real yet magical. So I came up with the talented musician who builds the world and passes on, leaving it to someone who can't do the same. It's sad and raw and very human without being silly, and I liked that. 

The players weren't interested in the narrative choice of it all. They didn't like it. The idea that after everything, Boccob was just some random guy who hadn't really made them, that everything was broken and Boccob couldn't fix it and didn't seem terribly interested in that--it was disheartening. Of course, I did this on purpose. Over the rest of the campaign, I wanted to push a new theme: creating one's own meaning and purpose. So by the end, hopefully we'll see the players responding to an emptiness in the universe by adding their own meaning to it. Repetition is our friend here, so you'll be seeing instances of me directly talking about making meaning as the campaign wraps up. 

One final note as we reflect on this session: one thing I am worried about is sticking the landing with the ending. Aurora's player gave me some specifics on character arc, but we're through those now, and I need to figure out how to move her from that point to a real point of progression. Lethanin needs some anchoring and some more emotional stuff, so we'll see his mom return and work on getting him situated in the world. Brokk will be the hardest. Brokk's player conceived of him as a very bleak person, and he's lightened a lot, but he still has a lot of weight he carries. I want to see absolution for him, and that's a delicate thing to give. So while the campaign has gone phenomenally so far, I also don't want to take success for granted as we begin the more delicate work of the ending. 

Next time, they players begin the third part of the adventure (part one being dragons and part two being gods), where they decide how to shape the world or not--their mission is done, but they have more to do. So next time, we'll see how they decide to forge fate, and I'll be here to tell you all about it. 

That's all for now. Until next time!

Of Gods and Dragons: Session Eleven - Of Gods

Last time, the party was variously thrown out of or stormed out of Hriskin's house after she proved less than amendable to their demands that she move on after losing her husband hundreds of years before. She mentioned a blue-suited man who'd appeared as she became especially depressed, leading Lethanin to believe she may have been cursed. Niela helped explain how to break the dragon's seal on the spell. They met with Cori, who came clean about being Corellon Larethian, suggesting that the group also look to Obad-Hai, Wee Jas, and Gruumsh for support; Brokk was shocked to learn that Corellon Larethian and Gruumsh seemed to be in a relationship. The group, Brokk especially, was overwhelmed and tried to be relaxed but productive, so Aurora obtained ingredients to cook Hriskin's favorite meal for her and create a personalized locket for her. The locket turned out to be rather ornate, with a magical image of Hriskin and her husband together and an inscription that celebrated past joy while still looking forward. The next morning, the group headed back to Hriskin's house, made her potato pancakes, and she finally agreed to let them try to remove a curse from her. Lethanin played a song to inspire Aurora to cast a spell to remove what they suspected to be a curse from Horton, the blue dragon, and Brokk cast remove curse on Hriskin. She immediately relaxed and began to act differently, now eager to help the party. She beat Brokk in a quick wrestling match, and the group carried on.

This time, I honestly don't have a lot for you, reader. Not in the way of notes. But I have a lot of commentary on this one, and I think that you learn more from some sessions, and that definitely happened here. 

I went into this session with the intention to be quiet. I felt that the narrative had captured enough bulk and momentum to have some real impact, and I hadn't allowed for a lot of room to breathe. So I wanted a low-pressure session. What the players did with it was at points decidedly not low-pressure, but I live to give them what they want. Let's talk broad strokes: the players had a long conversation about how to proceed which was not unanimous about dealing with Thomas. Specifically, they were disagreeing about what to do about him and when. This conversation took about an hour out of game. The session began with a serious tactical discussion of goals and methods almost immediately. This was a long time coming. Up to this point, the group has loosely defined goals and proposed solutions in a very informal way. There's been a kind of "we'll figure the rest out later" vibe to it all. Well, now they have six dragons behind them and Boccob to look towards, so there isn't really a later to it anymore. Suddenly, Aurora is unsure of when would be best to attack Thomas, and Brokk is growing frustrated at Aurora's uncertainty, and Lethanin is looking at them like they're both dopes for needing more of a plan, and the seams are pulling. Literally, I had given them to this point, "you're here, okay you're moving, now you're at Brokk's place," and the party was pulling itself apart. Thrilling but terrifying. 

A little party tension is good. You want to ride the line. Too much and it's toxic--not outright opposition, but something of interest. It's hard and arguably bad to engineer that kind of thing; players should be in charge of what they think and feel. But if you see tension, you can highlight it or foster it, or just let it fester. In this case, I felt festering was the right way to go. Especially since the next thing they meant to do was pray to gods looking for assistance, after which I had something planned. So divided, the party prayed. Lethanin spoke to Obad-Hai, who was slow and aloof but warm and who eventually agreed that they would help the party but would not outright attack another god. Similarly, Wee Jas told Aurora she was eager to help given that her powers are tapped by the rift and means to regain her power but held too many alliances to be able to attack anyone. But Gruumsh, who had a calm and fatherly demeanor appeared to Brokk and heard Brokk's various frustrations about the state of orckind. Gruumsh agreed that things were bad but focused on Brokk's wellbeing, talking a lot about self-forgiveness and the urgency of it. He agreed to serve the group's purpose "to the blood." 

The party returns from their prayers. I gave them a lot, but nothing unearned--they specifically sought out gods who would help them with someone eager to help and in the know. They should get a big benefit from that. They're all a little suspicious. Lethanin wants to know why Obad-Hai would pledge themself to help. Aurora is suspicious about trusting Wee Jas given her selfish motivations. Brokk is losing his mind over meeting Gruumsh and finding the god to be affable, wise, comfortable, and kind. I again leave them cueless. They are gathered in Brokk's house, they are fresh off a disagreement (and an urgent one at that), they're all feeling suspicious about things--let's leave them be. This atmosphere could lead to some interesting places. And they do start to argue again. It's the same fight with a new twist, just the same as it has been since the early game. It doesn't bother me--it delights me. I set out to call nuance into the picture, and here are like-minded people drawing themselves into positions against each other over details. It's success. And success in tabletop games is meant to be built upon, not simply enjoyed. So I threw something at them at a particularly sour moment in the conversation. 

Yondalla appeared at the their door. She did not play games. She announced herself as Yondalla and said she wanted a civil conversation. The party allowed her in. Yondalla admitted that her plan was complex. The leaking divine magic empowers those driven by good to be more sensitive to that motivation. Likewise with bad. But in the short time since the rift opened (only twelve days ago), dozens of settlements have had revolutions arcing towards representative government and the world had become safer via vigilante and militia patrols. Yondalla proposed preserving the tear for a year so that people become acclimated to goodness and its benefits, then return free will by repairing the rift in the future. Brokk was open to discussing this idea, and did so at good length. Aurora was skeptical, arguing that what Yondalla proposed was a long-shot. Lethanin was nearly outraged, asking what the limits are in terms of controlling someone's thoughts. Yondalla could see the conversation was not going in her favor, wished the group well, and dismissed herself. 

So the recipe so far has been let a good simmer develop with character arguments, confound the players with gods they can't understand, let them argue more, divide them on a more complicated issue, and then leave them. It was perfect. I knew that Brokk would never full stand by Yondalla's plan but that he would be intrigued by it, so as Aurora and Lethanin argued with Brokk about Yondalla's plan, I could see Brokk slowly turning. It was very well roleplayed and very satisfying to be a part of of. Ultimately, Brokk came around and everyone drew one final agreement: anything except repairing the veil is too big a risk to take with every life in the balance. Anything shy of repairing the veil cannot be a consideration. 

And again, the order of operations came up, and for one of the last times. The group quickly agreed that it was time to move forward. They summoned the dragons on their side, and as much as Niela's presence was uncomfortable for most everyone, especially her, the group explained the plan: send them to the gods' realm, and go from there to Boccob. This struck me utterly by surprise. I guess I had known in the back of my mind that they had the potential to approach Boccob, but it hadn't seemed entirely real. Suddenly, I was looking at meeting Boccob before the end of the session. I pulled myself together and began to describe the gods realm as the dragons teleported them there. They were in a quiet watering hole and prayed to the gods they'd prayed to earlier and Corellon Larethian. Accompanied by the four gods, who helped to open a great door to Boccob's realm, the party passed into the grand temple of Boccob. After a long march, they arrived before a massive, hairy creature with a reptilian face who they knew to be Boccob. 

I needed to leave my players be this session. There were conversations that couldn't keep coming up anymore and they needed space to deal with. I've controlled the pace of meeting the new dragons, and I needed to truly know that the players wanted to maintain this quick pace by leaving them to pace themselves. And speaking of pacing, as soon as they felt it was possible, they went headlong into Boccob's realm. They did not poke around in the gods' realm. I had loads of stuff conceived of for the gods' realm, and it all of it never gets used, I'll call it a victory because they got what they wanted in an interesting way. They called the shots this session, and they used all of it to move on. To move past the conversations that keep coming back, to move on from the slog of organizing supernatural beings, to move on from the last part of the adventure and their personal goals. It was really beautiful. 

Of course, I can't just sit back and watch them do things every session. I do need the world and the NPCs to be more active sometimes. But when pressure is high and especially at the ends of arcs, it's good to have a cool down session. Of course, with this session in particular, they did not so much cool down as hurtle forward, but they're doing it for closure, and I think that expresses a deep emotional release they're pursuing. But I really advise if you can to give as much of a session as the party needs just kind of recovering, talking, and regaining the energy to try again. 

Don't let me give the impression I'm doing some cold calculus about what story moments can best be impacted with which strategy. I'm going by feel. Stories are my thing, and I know how to shape one. But you can do a rough calculus if you don't feel it in your bones. I'd say three high-stress sessions should be followed by one cool down session, and perhaps every four or five mid-stress sessions and five low-stress sessions as a very rough estimate. If you're roleplaying, you don't just want to experience your character at their most stressed possible constantly. You want a range of emotions, and that means more than just freaking out. If the characters need to decompress, it can be a good idea to let them.

Of course, this also raises questions about endgame. I'd originally conceived as reaching Boccob and counseling a choice would be the end. But that lacked real closure, and the players have largely created storylines that demand playing after Boccob. So the endgame is actually the midgame now--whatever happens with Boccob is the middle of the game, and the sprawling adventures that the party has now are the endgame. I have big ideas, but I want to keep those under wraps until they're realized--even putting something in writing can make me feel too attached to a particular version of things. 

So next time, the players will speak with Boccob. I'm still working out Boccob's side of things, but given that Aurora's first dialogue with them was about their aesthetic similarity to dragons, it's bound to have a colorful start. Next session may be the most important session of the campaign, and then again it might not. It's a thrilling situation. 

That's all for now. Until next time!

Of Gods and Dragons: Session Ten - Hriskin

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!

Of Gods and Dragons: Session Nine - Cori and Finiel

Last time, the party recovered after Aurora's encounter with Hromar, the man from her past, and her realization that she needed to destroy her hometown; as the group rebounded, they headed to meet with Tasselman, the strange academic about his research and his knowledge of Boccob. Brokk prayed to Boccob and heard a reply: now is not the time, but we will speak soon. The party returned to Aurora's mom's shop and met with Aurix, who suggested that a larger thing than the prophecy united the party and teleported the group to Kallett City to speak with Rupert, the copper dragon. After some searching and running into Moira, the talented smith who made Brokk's battleaxe in Talon Gorge, they found Rupert drinking alone on the mountainside outside of town. They had a roundabout conversation with him about morality, and when they brought up their quest to repair the rift, Rupert suggested instead destroying the veil between worlds, killing the dragons, and killing the gods so that normal people could live normal lives.

This time, we picked up in the middle of that conversation. Brokk argued that the greater good required more than destroying everything, and when that didn't work, Aurora reasoned that Rupert's thinking was flawed and that destroying everything wouldn't really solve the problem either. But Rupert refused to concede to their arguments. The party grew frustrated, and on the belief that they could get by without Rupert, they decided to simply leave him alone. As they left, Lethanin told Rupert that he needed to simply love himself enough to do the right thing. Rupert became confused but was intrigued--what did Lethanin mean by this? Lethanin explained that if Rupert chose to take action and choose what matters, that was the only real way to do something about the problem--not giving up and destroying everything. Rupert said that he felt he was always making situations worse and agreed to hear the plan out of curiosity. Brokk explained that free will is the most important thing, and the leaking magic from the divine realm was impairing free will. Rupert puzzled out that his recent extreme chaoticness could be because of the leaking magic--since becoming a dragon, he'd felt especially uncontrollable, and he had no dragonhood before the rift to compare that to. Ultimately, Rupert tentatively agreed to help the party with at least fighting Thomas. Aurora and Rupert spoke for a moment about the ability to strip gods of their immortality with glyphs, which Rupert had done, and with nothing further to discuss at that moment, Rupert teleported away to experiment with spells to combat Thomas. Brokk commended Lethanin on getting Rupert to listen, and Lethanin expressed deep surprise that the strategy had actually worked. 

Out of game, this was a really delicate moment to DM. Rupert was, very intentionally, a difficult person to talk to. As I've noted previously, Rupert was a player character in my D&D podcast, Listen Check, and Rupert as a character was often a subject of contention. Rupert's player insisted that he was chaotic neutral or even chaotic good; I felt that Rupert's actions were often chaotic evil, as Rupert frequently took joy in threatening or hurting people. One core belief of mine is that fighting an evil person does not necessarily make you good--taking joy in helping people makes you good. Rupert never really did that. He relished a contentious fight and often sought to "punish" people he disapproved of, sometimes psychologically torturing them (which was his main complaint about the archvillain of the campaign). So in playing Rupert for this campaign, I wanted to preserve both halves of that--Rupert is vengeful and spiteful and somewhat nihilistic but also feels he has good intentions about the whole thing. And above all, Rupert was hard-headed--he rarely changed his mind and was hard to dissuade once he made his mind up. So I had to make some very calculated decisions. 

Initially, Rupert was approached by the party with a moral argument. But Rupert's belief that he was moral and the fact that he saw things differently from them (paired with his stubbornness) meant that he wouldn't really listen. So at first, in last session and the beginning of this one, those arguments were met with ridicule and opposition. This was true to the character, and it also presented Rupert as a kind of exception to the rule with the good dragons so far--he wasn't swayed by simple morality and wanted something that affected him personally. So when Lethanin suggested that Rupert needed to love himself, we had a new idea to consider. Rupert was always a character who was deeply sure of himself, but he also had lived a life full of mistakes that deeply hurt him, so suggesting that he himself had some deep flaw that might have caused that pain was effective where moral arguments were not. And Rupert, in his own way, is worried about free will too--he fought a god in order to regain the ability to do as he pleases. So discovering that he was being restricted by the leaking magic would even more deeply affect him. Still, Rupert was stubborn, so he didn't exactly jump onboard the plan wholeheartedly--he merely said he'd be willing to consider and try to help, which is the most the party would reasonably get out of him. 

Compared to the other dragons, Rupert was a high-stress character for me to play. The others are creations by me--I've been loosely working on them for twelve years and closely working on them for two years. Aurix was actually pretty well defined for all of that time since he was a central character in Listen Check. But Rupert is not mine in the same way--he's a player character who was and is massively important to my world. I had never played him before these last two sessions, and I wanted to do him justice. Even then, I know that I played him somewhat differently than his old player would have--Rupert would have been likely less combative, less depressed, and more prone to moral arguments. Probably, anyway--it's impossible to know for sure. But there was also the matter of what dragonhood under the leaking magic would do to him. My understanding of Rupert would be that he became almost impossibly powerful at the same time that the leaking magic would impair his decision-making, and that would make him irritable (or more irritable, more accurately) and fairly disillusioned. So this whole thing was a very complicated dance, and while I have doubts that my performance as Rupert would make his old player entirely satisfied, I think I did what I needed to do to respect my understanding of the character, have Rupert play an important and interesting role in this campaign, and advance the story without dishonoring Listen Check, and that's something I'm proud of. Now back to the session. 

Content for the time being with Rupert's agreement, the party decided to call it a night. They initially considered finding an inn room in Kallett City, but Aurora requested they teleport to Drumchapel for the night so they could rest not far from Finiel, where they meant to find the brass dragon, Hriskin, the next day, and also because her mother, Heather, was already staying in Drumchapel. They all agreed, and while Aurora developed a spell to teleport the group to Drumchapel, Brokk searched for an found Moira watching over the festival, which was still quite lively. Brokk and Moira stood at the edge of the crowd and people-watched, discussing the merits of simply being a spectator and about the value of the greater good even when it brings pain on the one fighting for it--they agreed that the right thing to do is the right thing to do even if it requires a little sacrifice. Brokk returned to the group, and Aurora opened a portal to Brokk's house, where they all rested in various ways until the following morning. 

Brokk gathered a very Drumchapel kind of breakfast for the group just before they rose--pear pastries, coffee, and pear cider--and they sat on the dock behind Brokk's house to discuss plans. Brokk and Aurora talked about their progress in the novels they'd been reading, Aurora and Lethanin thanked Brokk for breakfast, and they all began a conversation about the proper ordering of their plans--do they target Thomas before heading to the gods' realm out of fear he oppose them in that aim, or do they tend to the Boccob conversation and deal with Thomas when they return. They did not achieve a completely solid resolution, instead agreeing to play the situation by ear and see what Thomas throws at them. They also noted that Boccob speaking directly to Brokk was a very good sign--Boccob was said to have never spoken directly to a mortal, so their words to Brokk seemed to be a good omen. Heather awoke and joined them on the dock, making small talk about their days before heading out into the woods to forage for local insects as alchemical ingredients. Brokk suggested she look for his friend Curtran, a priestess of Ehlonna who might help Heather to find what she was looking for. Once Heather was gone, the group discussed Aurora's "all or nothing" approach to magic, and Aurora acknowledged that she had sacrificed the knowledge of basically her whole life in order to gain that magic. They decided to set out for Finiel to find Hriskin. 

The road to Finiel was not long--really only a couple of miles, which the group covered quickly. The road was fairly busy, and a traveler named Cori, an elven woman with a large spear, walked alongside them for a time, making conversation. She asked what each of them was like and made observations about their appearances; when asked, she said she was a ferry boat captain who was on vacation to Finiel to see a play by her favorite playwright, whose newest play was supposed to be about a moral conundrum--do you go with the known but flawed situation and work to make it better, or do you forge a new path to the unknown and try to improve things that way instead? She posed this question to the group, and everyone offered vague, guarded answers that indicated that all of them would in fact opt for "the devil you know." Cori expressed satisfaction in knowing that there are people like them in the world, telling them to keep making good choices to continue a legacy of good via the known option. Aurora asked to speak to Cori after the play was over, and they agreed to meet at a tavern called The Empty Stage across the street from the theater. After Cori hurried onward to catch the play, the group discussed the likelihood that Cori was a god. Lethanin said she almost certainly was; Brokk was skeptical of the idea that everyone they meet must be a god; Aurora argued that she was likely Corellon Larethian and looked up the eleven god in her book about deities. Upon reading that Corellon Larethian is a spear-wielding elf with strong chaotic good leanings and a love for the arts, even Brokk admitted that Cori was likely Corellon Larethian. 

Out of game, Cori was in fact Corellon Larethian. In these session recaps, I've been slow to admit directly to you, the reader, which NPCs are in fact gods. But let's get explicit here. Ollie is Olidammara, the goddess of rogues and revelery, as the players suspect. Rhodes is Fharlangh, the god of travelers, as they suspect. Cori is Corellon Larethian, the goddess of the elves, as they suspect. The only god they haven't directly diagnosed is Moira, who they do believe to be a god but don't have a direct belief about the identity of--she's Moradin, the goddess of the dwarves. Each deity they've encountered has been pretty obviously divine, and that's been intentional. The gods have been sequestered away from humanity for millennia and have little sense of human subtlety, so their behavior is a bit unsubtle. Further, the players know for a fact that gods are involved in life on Evanoch, so their hackles are up, and they know to suspect that gods are in the mix. This is something that I didn't directly anticipate. I figured that the gods would pass as normal people more often, but that didn't really happen. But I'm okay with that. The actual way it's all played out is even better, as far as I'm concerned. 

Meeting with these gods has been tense each time because the players are paranoid about being contacted by gods. Brokk even said that he doubted Cori was Corellon Larethian because being paranoid about stuff makes you see problems where they don't exist. But Cori really is the goddess of the elves, and the party is not being paranoid, but they do feel like they're being paranoid. I've been careful to add NPCs presented in similar ways to keep them guessing, but they still have been accurate every time. I don't think that's bad DMing--I'm not exactly trying to keep the gods a secret. If I were, I wouldn't have been so upfront about gods coming to the mundane world. So the result, mostly unintended, is that the players are really freaked out about simple interactions. The players actually discussed directly asking Cori is she was a goddess next time they see her, and that's an interaction that will be utterly wild, especially since my version of Corellon Larethian would absolutely just say "yes" without a second thought. It might even lead to something really supernatural happening. So really, the fact that the players are really sure she's Corellon Larethian means that the story is ramping up, heightening, and driving towards the next phase of the story--dealing directly with the gods. And I'm very pleased with that. Just as they're on the way to meet with the last dragon they intend to speak to, the gods storyline is coming to the forefront, which means that the campaign is shifting in that direction pretty organically. I'm excited--I think a direct conversation with Cori will be a great opportunity to start looking ahead now that the dragon storyline is settling down. 

Speaking of the dragons, the players were still searching for Hriskin in Finiel. They arrived in town and went directly to the arena since they knew that Hriskin was a former arena champion. This threw me--I hadn't really considered what at the arena might point them in the right direction and was erring on the side of having an arena superfan give some information pointing in the right direction. But Brokk gave me a better alternative--he looked for a "Hall of Fame" in the arena. This was a great moment to remember that players will often give you better ideas than you have yourself. So I said that yes, there is a Hall of Fame, and the players went to investigate it. After doing some searching, they found a massive portrait of Hriskin, the "Champion of Champions" who always took her opponents down non-lethally and never lost a fight no matter the odds, winning match after match for forty years and then disappearing. This benefited me a lot, since I had decided Hriskin was an arena champion but never really thought about her fighting style or what made her so legendary--in this moment, I could lovingly embellish her legacy and make her fighting style match her personality (principled, stubbornly good, remarkable, and humble) in a really colorful way without having to have someone talk about her. The worst case scenario would have been asking Hriskin directly about her time in the arena--her humility would dictate that she not sing her own praises, so Brokk's Hall of Fame idea let me build her up so I could show her to be humble later on and be clear about her characterization. 

But the party of course found no direction towards Hriskin in the Hall of Fame. So Lethanin once again played a song to find her, a rousing and dramatic song on the violin that stirred the party and revealed that a dragon was off to the south outside of town near a river. For a magical reason, Lethanin felt compelled to end the song on a very melancholy note, and the party set off out of Finiel to find her. Once outside of town, Aurora cast a spell to find Hriskin, and a magical trail appeared leading them down the road toward a major river, then off into the woods and well away from civilization. After a long walk, they found a large cottage by the river, and the cottage was overgrown with ivy and mosses, appearing totally abandoned. Brokk knocked at the door, and for a long time, there was no answer. Lethanin scouted the cottage for signs of life but couldn't find anything definitive. Eventually, Brokk fired an Eldritch Blast into the air, and the crackling boom that resounded did get Hriskin to barely crack the door open. She asked in a tired voice what the group wanted, and the party asked for a few minutes of her time, identifying her by name. She shrugged and allowed them inside, and her appearance was different from what they'd seen in the Hall of Fame portrait--her hair was long and unkempt, her clothes dirty and disheveled, and her expression defeated. 

And that's where we ended. Again, our session time indicated the end--we'd reached the point where we would customarily call it a night, and finding the final dragon of the group's plan and being granted an audience with her seemed a fitting point to stop. It will also be an interesting start to next session. A while ago, Wing told the party that Hriskin had gone silent after the death of her husband and was likely deeply depressed. The real scope of that will become evident next session. The truth is that Hriskin has spent about four hundred years so depressed that she's barely alive and functional. She doesn't see a point in life, really, and she's gone to extreme ends to test how truly immortal she is. That conversation will share some things with Rupert's conversation--she will be harder to convince to help than the other dragons--but will also take another direction--Rupert was bent on destroying everything, whereas Hriskin will be more inclined to simply give up and take no action at all. Seeing how the party deals with Hriskin will be interesting, but I really don't know how they'll have to work with her to convince her to help. 

With the conversation with Rupert, I didn't set down some magic words that would shake him from his gloom and anger. I really just went from a point of characterization--what would he say in return to any given argument. In the moment, it was clear to me that moral arguments wouldn't work; Rupert believes himself to be moral and simply disagreed with the party's morality. But Lethanin's tactic of questioning Rupert's identity shook him. Rupert's identity had radically changed in recent times and was very much up to questioning, and Rupert responded to the idea that he may be suffering from something outside of his control rather than the assertion that everything was within his control. That's all consistent with his character. Similarly, I don't have magic words that will "fix" Hriskin. There's no one thing I'm waiting for the players to say to her. But I do know that arguments about duty and obligation won't work--she sees no purpose in her life and will actively argue that dragonhood shouldn't exist because of the misery it's brought on her. That means that the party will need to come up with something that does appeal to her, and I don't know what that will be yet. 

I think that in general, tabletop games are not the kind of thing were a single answer is ever appropriate. The point of TTRPGs is that we can imagine and do anything--anything at all. Deciding that there's one right answer flies in the face of the very concept of a TTRPG. So I'm not going to say that there's a right answer or even a few right answers for how to deal with Hriskin. I'm just going to listen to the players and judge how convinced she'd be by them. It's an arguably harder strategy to use as a DM, but with a good understanding of what a character is like, it's certainly possible. And I think that having a conversation be resolved by a genuine appeal to what makes a distinct character tick is satisfying for the players and for me. Think about this: if there was some specific sentence that could convince all of the dragons to cooperate, would it feel satisfying to say again and again? No. Aurix needed to see beyond black and white. Jarvia needed to know that free will would allow her to live as she chooses, as did Niela. Wing needed to know the greater good was being served. Rupert had to question his own shortsightedness to see clearly. Hriskin will need to see that life is worth living. But all of those distinct needs can be resolved in many ways--the players just need to speak to the dragons for long enough and get enough of a sense of who they are to understand those needs and reach out to them. That's ultimately the mechanism that this campaign hinges on--how do you understand an NPC and convince them to work with you even when they have their own goals and perspective? It's how they've worked with the dragons, and it's how they'll work with the gods, and it's how they'll ultimately address Boccob in the end. Roleplaying is about being in character and responding to the gameworld like it's real, and this mechanic really pushes that roleplaying into focus. So I'm very eager to see how the dragons, who are still real people, are convinced to help, and how that differs from the how the gods, who are not exactly real people, are convinced to help. 

That's the big picture. For next time, we'll be seeing how Hriskin plays into things, how the conversation with Cori goes, and what the party plans to do once they've gotten all the dragon business in order. Keep in mind, reader, there are twice as many gods as there are dragons, so what will follow will likely be far more complicated. And one thing I have yet to acknowledge is that unlike the dragons, who have all been pretty isolated and on their own, the gods have formed alliances along the lines of their goals, which is sure to complicate things further. We have all these things to look forward to in our next session. I look forward to it and to telling you all about it. 

That's all for now. Until next time, happy gaming!

Of Gods and Dragons: Session Eight - Rupert

Last time, the party headed towards Torga, stopped on their way by highwaymen who they intimidated, immobilized, and frightened without any harm or incident. They headed into town, leaving the leader of the highwaymen with the guards, and went to the Mortar and Pestle, the shop Aurora's mother Heather owns and operates. Brokk and Lethanin made introductions with Heather, and as Aurora made a nice dinner for everyone, the party discussed their notions of what family is and should/could be--Aurora was positive and upbeat about her relationship with Heather, Lethanin was dubious of any beneficial familial relationship in light of his relationship with his parents, and Brokk was confused by any understanding of family, having his background as a constructed war machine without proper family. Brokk suggested that upon killing Thomas, the red dragon who they suspected was plotting against them, that he be instated as the new red dragon in order to fill the position of power rather than allow someone evil to take Thomas's place. Meanwhile, downstairs, a man named Hromar asked to speak to Aurora, saying he knew her in the past and wanted to speak about her forgotten memories. Aurora and the others assembled in the backyard and heard Hromar out--he said he had worked with Aurora in the camps of Pelor's Mercy, where they had kept troublemakers in line and punished those who dared test them; he also said that Aurora was not some confused girl deep down. This enraged Aurora, and in the combat that followed (despite Lethanin's attempt to cool the situation), Aurora disintegrated Hromar. In a moment, she saw memories she had locked away, seeing herself working with Hromar as he said and beating chained prisoners. Rocked by the realization that she had been one of the community now tracking her, she asked Brokk and Lethanin's help in destroying the town as the faerie who had granted her a new life asked her to. They agreed, and they sent Heather to stay in Drumchapel (Brokk's home) until things were safer. 

This time, the session began on a strange note. Aurora was still distraught after her revelation about her old identity, and she looked on the statue of herself and Heather that had been broken in the fight with Hromar, saying it was best left destroyed. But Brokk questioned this, asking why that would be the case. Aurora changed her mind and fixed the statue. Brokk insisted that Aurora take a few moments to relax and calm down after the tension of the encounter, which she did after apologizing that Brokk and Lethanin had to see her kill Hromar. Lethanin was understanding, saying, "Sometimes you have to disintegrate a dude." Aurora mourned the fact that she couldn't seem to escape from her past, something that everyone agreed was troubling to them too. 

After the tension of the fight subsided, they agreed to go to the bookshop called Library of the Ages, where Lethanin had ventured during his intro session, in order to speak to Tasselman, the curious academic who lives there, on the grounds that he had strange knowledge and theories about the world and that he had mentioned being blessed by Boccob. At the shop, they met with Tasselman and began to question him about Boccob and the strange jeweled globe he had. Tasselman was incredibly apologetic about the fact that he had very little concrete information to share. He explained that Boccob as a deity was very removed from the affairs of people, and that part of what marveled him about the globe is that he had never heard of Boccob answering a prayer before. He offered to perform research on Boccob, which would take a few days, and suggested praying to Boccob for guidance as he had, specifically by appealing to Boccob's sense of identity--a focus on knowledge and meaning. Tasselman also mentioned his genealogical work, which claims that all races in the known world are fundamentally related; he told Brokk that as an elf and an orc, they were basically siblings, and knowledge of this might have prevented the War of Kraal that Brokk was born to fight in. Brokk acknowledged this and gave respect to Tasselman, then excused himself downstairs. 

Brokk went to the center of the bookstore, which Tasselman had claimed was one of the largest repositories of knowledge anywhere, and knelt to pray. Brokk asked Boccob, addressing the deity as the "Keeper of Knowledge," to grant the group a chance to prove the purpose of humanoid life unimpeded by the interference of gods, asking for the restoration of the barrier between mundane and divine worlds for the sake of freedom of choice and the safety of millions of lives, asking too for guidance and promising to pursue seeing Boccob regardless of the outcome of the prayer. In response, Brokk felt the air in his lungs grow brisk and cold, then saw a spinning flame of all colors, and then heard Boccob's voice explain that now was not yet the time, but that Boccob understood what Brokk was saying, and promised that they would indeed speak when the time was right. Content with the answer, the group perused the bookstore, purchasing a number of romance novels that Priggin, the shopkeeper, suggested based on various requests (the bestselling book, the most recommended book, and the most awful but nonetheless enjoyable book). With their new information and their novels, the group returned to the Mortar and Pestle. 

It's worth noting here that this session was one I didn't prepare anything for, largely due to the fact that I couldn't. Now that the campaign is really in the thick of exploring and trying plans, I don't want to railroad at all, and that motivated me to leave things open. But at the same time, the players gave me very little to plan for. I knew they intended to go to the bookstore to see Tasselman, but I didn't know what they would ask about. In previous sessions, I've come to the table with a few vague notes and suggested events that might occur, but this session had absolutely nothing in the way of ideas like that. And by that note, this encounter at the bookstore was very impossible to anticipate. Tasselman is a fairly well-defined character--he was a notable NPC in Listen Check, my old D&D podcast--so I was able to basically just play him like I used to, although that was now nearly fifteen years ago, and my exact memory of him was a little fuzzy. But the information about Boccob was different. I've always played the game such that Boccob is so removed from reality that no one really knows anything about them, so I had to improvise. That's a big theme on this site and in this session in particular, especially when you consider that I had to have a ten-minute conversation about fictional books that I hadn't prepared for and had to come up with titles and plot descriptions and literary analyses for on the spot. 

So let's talk about improvisation in a new way. There's a moment later in this session that will drive this point home again, but let's talk about something valuable here and now. Whether you're running combat, hijinks, or roleplaying, you need to be able to improvise. If you're homebrewing rather than running a module, and even then at times, you have to be able to respond to your players in a meaningful way. After all, the players are improvising, and responding in kind is vital. But how do you get good at improvising? As with most all things, it's practice. You can practice by running TTRPGs or playing them, and this is a good route for most of us. But there's something else you can do to double down on improving at improvising. Learning improv, be it comedy or drama, though most available training for improv is for comedy. I am by no means an expert-level improviser; if you put me on stage and asked me to act out a complex story or make people laugh, I would be good enough to get some reactions, but I'm also not about to be cast in an improv troupe or tapped for Saturday Night Live. (My players often tell me I'm very good at improvising, though, so factor some humility into the calculation.) However, I am very familiar with improv via my time working in radio. 

I started my radio career doing a simple "morning show"-style program where I would chat and joke with some friends. Once I was confident and comfortable with this, I started a storytelling show with a friend, and we would trade long-form stories back and forth. And then I started a true improv comedy show in which me and a friend would pretend to be characters and just try to make each other (and hopefully, the audience) laugh. I had spent hundreds of hours on the air filling time with nothing but improvised commentary and humor by the time I started Listen Check, an almost entirely improvised show (just a bit of planning big character moments between episodes). I convey all of this to say that I practiced improv pretty heavily for several years in order to get comfortable with it. 

My ultimate point here is not to go out and get a radio job and intensely condition yourself to the point of being able to fill two-hour slots with improv comedy. What I'm saying is that improv helps you to be a better improviser (as you would imagine), and that in and of itself is actually attainable. Most bigger cities will have a theater or recreation center that offers improv classes. They are traditionally very affordable. The basis of the classes is teaching a few methods for improvising and giving lots of practice for honing your developing skills. By all means, if you want to practice improv via TTRPGs, please do. But if you're looking for a way to provide compelling plots and interesting titles and insightful-sounding analyses of a handful of books that only exist because you're currently talking about them and have your players say that they wish those books existed so they could actually read them and do all of that without missing a beat--practicing improv is a good way to bolster your skills so that you can pull that off. Truly, pick the approach that feels most comfortable--improv classes and practice are not the only way to improve--but know that one way to get there is practicing improv, and it's done wonders for my ability to DM in a way that's polished and satisfying to me and my players.

Anyway, when the party returned to the Mortar and Pestle, they encountered Aurix in his human form waiting for them. He spoke urgently of getting to business, so the group stepped inside and began to prepare to leave Torga. Aurora locked the shop up, looking over the house sentimentally as she went (fearing she would never see it again), and cast a spell that called on Yondalla, the goddess of halflings who her mother worships, to protect the shop while everyone was gone. Meanwhile, Brokk told Aurix that he was happy to see them, which caused Aurix to suspect that Brokk was playing a joke; Brokk insisted that he meant it, which confounded Aurix, who still believed that they were too bad with people to get that reaction from someone. With the group reassembled, Brokk shared what Boccob had said, which they concluded meant that they had time to pursue reuniting the dragons and were likely on the right path--they should keep doing what they were doing. Lethanin spoke of following "the Song," leading Aurix to speculate that Aurora manipulates reality through her magic, Lethanin hears reality via "the Song," and Brokk is (as a half-demon) of a different reality, suggesting that perhaps there is something special about the group that makes them inclined to be designated by the prophecy about the rift. Unable to make further progress by discussing things, the group agreed to go to Kallett City where the copper dragon was suspected to be, and Aurix teleported them to outside the city gates. 

Arriving in Kallett City, the group found a festival in full swing. They obtained drinks for a catered table, and Lethanin suggested heading to a rowdy bar to ask after Rupert, who Aurix said was the copper dragon. They headed to just such a bar (which I named "The Complete Works of Montgomery Ward" as a jokey name only to find out that the name "Montgomery Ward" is a real life retail store--it was a silly accident, but it got a laugh). Inside, Lethanin gravitated towards a stage where a trio of musicians played a medley of folk tunes; Aurora set up to people-watch, trying to spot drunken old human men (the description they'd gotten of Rupert), and Brokk unexpectedly cast Eldritch Blast into the ceiling to get everyone's attention. It worked. He asked if anyone knew Rupert, and the bar patrons all said that Rupert was the mayor. Brokk paid for the next round to apologize for his commotion, and the group headed outside to find the mayor. Brokk flagged down the first person who he saw, which happened to be Moira, the dwarven smith he'd bought an ax from earlier in Talon Gorge. Spooked by her appearance again (he had already been disturbed by her upon first meeting), he listened as she said she was on a vacation inspired by their last conversation, gave some details about the festival (a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of the town), said the mayor would be giving a speech soon, and heartily wishing that Brokk do whatever the right thing for him would be as they had discussed. Brokk was even more perturbed by the conversation with Moira, and the group discussed the likelihood that she was in fact a god of some sort. 

Meanwhile, the mayor, a young halfling named Rupert Millhoe took the stage to speak to the festival-goers. He spoke about the legacy of Kallett City and toasted to its future. Out of game, I spoke as Mayor Rupert for about three to five minutes about Kallett City. This is worth noting because I had literally zero information about Kallett City planned or written anywhere. I had improvised that the mayor was named Rupert as something of a misdirect to keep the party from immediately finding the copper dragon, so I also had no sense of who Mayor Rupert was. The festival was also an improvised touch to make the city a little more interesting and colorful and add some chaos to the group's arrival. What I'm saying is, I had nothing to go on for Rupert's speech in any way, shape, or form. But I just started talking about Kallett City as though it were a real place and let whatever I said last guide the next thing I said. I described the urging not to build a city on the spine of a mountain; I talked about the sense of work ethic and community among the people who lived there; I talked about Mayor Rupert's pride in leading the city and how this was his first time as mayor during the celebration since his inauguration; I offered a toast to the past, present, and future of the city; I said that the festival was technically over with his speech delivered but suggested that there was no problem with the celebration continuing. All of this came out of my mouth as I said it. I do not hesitate to say that such a speech (which was later complimented by the players, some of whom were surprised it was all improvised) would not have been possible as a purely improvised product had I not had a healthy background in improvisation. Again, reader, practicing improv is a very vital thing in TTRPGs, and you'll be surprised at how confident a GM it makes you to be able to just start talking and have coherent, even interesting, things come out of your mouth. 

The group was confounded. Mayor Rupert was a young halfling who'd been serving as mayor for nearly a year--there was basically no way that he could be the copper dragon they'd been searching for. So Lethanin cast a spell to detect creatures to try to find the copper dragon. After sorting past the various wildlife living on the mountain, Lethanin saw a human-shaped target which the spell designated as a creature outside of town and up the mountainside. Aurora jumped on this opportunity and cast a spell to follow the dragon's location out of town and up the mountain. After some navigation and climbing, the group found a human man who appeared to be about thirty years old sitting with a keg of ale and drinking quite furiously. The group tried to talk with him, but he insisted that he was here to drink alone, mournfully and silently. For a while, no matter what the group said, he argued that they were violating the alone, mournful, and silent elements of his plan. Eventually, he said his name was Eric and asked them to leave him alone. 

At this point, Brokk leapt into action. He asked the others for some time to talk to Eric and asked Eric what his thoughts on free will were. Eric sourly said that free will does not exist. He told a story about his "friend," Rupert. Eric said that Rupert was a farmer whose life was destroyed by things outside his control. So Rupert learned magic and went to Torga, and one day, he went to a ghostly town and encountered a talking statue which was actually an incarnation of Gruumsh. Gruumsh told Rupert to kill a few people as payback for a massacre of orcs hundreds of years before. But Rupert felt that punishing people who had nothing to do with the massacre was unjust and refused. Enraged, Gruumsh tortured Rupert with nightmares and opposition until Rupert began to cooperate. Looking for a way out, Rupert sought to kill Gruumsh, which he managed to do with help from a few friends. But Rupert was rewarded with dragonhood, making him more alone than ever, functionally immortal, and absolutely without choices because of the divine magic. Eric said free will could not exist if choices only make things worse in ways we cannot predict.

Brokk nodded along and told his own story about a "friend" who was created for war, who changed his mind and became a force of good and peace. Brokk argued that free will does exist because his "friend" managed to make meaningful choices that changed things. Eric said that if things are said to exist for other people but don't exist to you, then they are not truly real to you. They debated back and forth for a while, and eventually, Brokk broke through to Eric, who admitted that he was in fact Rupert, and he had only posed as Eric because he was on the run from the law in Torga. Brokk explained the prophecy (Rupert, subject of his own prophecy, was sympathetic to Brokk's frustrations) and the group's goals: repairing the rift and killing Thomas to set things right. Rupert chuckled. He said he had a counter-proposal. The problem, Rupert said, was that the dragons and gods hold too much power over common people. Repairing the rift would not solve that problem. What would solve the problem, suggested Rupert, was removing the powerful beings altogether, and he said that destroying the rift to kill both the dragons and gods would allow true balance for everyday people. 

It was at this pivotal moment that we stopped. Our normal time for gaming had run out, and I felt that stopping at such a shocking moment would be exciting. My players agreed--Brokk's player was flabbergasted by Rupert's proposal, Lethanin's player was only able to say "What a cliffhanger," and Aurora's player was silent and wide-eyed. It was more impactful than I had imagined, which is always nice as a DM. But ending here also served a tactical purpose. The only other dragon to suggest destroying the veil was Thomas, who was incredibly evil. Rupert was a metallic dragon, one who the group more or less needs to have on their side in order to fight Thomas. Convincing Rupert to repair the rift will take a lot, and I thought it was kind to the players to allow them the customary two weeks between our sessions to plan how to approach the rest of the conversation. With Jarvia, Wing, and Niela, the party agreed--talking about plans just meant collaborating. Working with Aurix to adopt the repairing plan meant talking about how to understand similar ideals and was more a philosophical difference of opinion than outright opposition. But Rupert, who again is vital to their plan, has radically different ideas. To get through to him, they'll need something big to convince him of their perspective. So ending there allows the players to plan out of game, and that gives them a chance to really consider what to do in terms of moving forward. 

Looking ahead, I again have little to go on. Next session will once again be largely (if not entirely) improvised. But this campaign has really helped me to cement a theory that I have about campaign design. There are largely three phases to a campaign: the beginning (or exposition), the middle (or development), and the end (or wrap-up). Each phase calls for different levels of preparation. The beginning is something that benefits from a fair (but not excessively) amount of planning. Having a good idea of what will kick off the adventure and give most of the required information to understand the stakes is good. In this campaign, the first session where Thomas and Aurix give information about the prophesy and the rift was important so that the players could know what they were doing, and having Jarvia explain further stakes later on was also important, especially since that's what the players have settled on as their goal. In these early sessions, I really leaned on a healthy amount of prepared ideas (what they would learn, but not how they learn it) to get them up to speed. 

Then we transitioned in the middle, where things develop. We've been in this phase for several sessions now. Starting with talking to Wing and moving into talking with Niela, we transitioned from basic information to the group taking a more active role. Faithful readers will note that my prep work started to drop off in these sessions, and we're now at a point where I've had either a few bullet points or literally nothing prepared for the last three sessions, which is appropriate for how the party is handling things. They're taking the reins and making choices, and I want that to be the focus--the middle of the story is where the players should be guiding basically everything. 

We're not exactly near the ending, but things will shift again as we get there. The basic chart of a story would look like a loosening and then tightening spiral. It starts out tight (the beginning where I need to get certain information dispensed), then loosens (the middle where they can do pretty much anything), then tightens again (the ending where there are only so many things that will bring about a real resolution). As the story wraps up, I'll be preparing a little more again. It will be time to decide what kinds of things the gods do after the party had made contact with them and what Boccob may do in response to the players' actions. It will be time to start thinking about how to offer a satisfying ending to the player characters. It will be time to draw the focus back towards the main story about the rift, and that will mean I can plan some things without interfering with the players' free will (a centerpiece of this campaign) and give endings that are more carefully considered than improvised. 

But that's looking ahead. Right now, we're in the middle of things. It's time for the players to have free reign. Talking to Rupert will be a huge challenge unlike anything they've encountered, and they could handle it in any number of ways. I have to leave it to them. Whether they try to reason with Rupert, force him into compliance, or abandon his support altogether--or likely some other fourth thing that I could never anticipate--it's their story, and I'm here for them to tell it. That's the real strength of improvising, by the way: it's cool to make up a little speech for a scene, but it's even more important to actually let your players guide the story, and you can only do that by improvising. I don't have any idea what will happen next time, but I'm eager to find out. 

That's all for now. Until next time, happy gaming!

Of Gods and Dragons: Session Seven - Torga and a Stranger

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!