In which the Sigil 6 get Kuru back, make a Wish and get back to Sigil.

Who are the Sigil 6 – Trundle, Helewynn, Bugwump, Kuru, Jusko and Failed Soldier and what have they been up to?

• Kuru was mind-controlled by an aboleth, The Dweller in the Lightless Abyss. The Halfling Arcane Trickster failed EVERY roll to escape the control. He told the ancient cthonic beast that his friends had killed Strahd, so the Dweller sent him back, still mind-controlled, “Tell them you broke free and I will send instructions soon.”

• Meanwhile the rest of the Sigil 6 cut a deal with the Drow Inquisitor, which is to say, she’d walk them out of the city and they wouldn’t kill her. They found Kuru and got to getting the Shadowfell-stranded villagers through the Old Githyanki Gate to Sigil.

• They quickly realized something was up with Kuru. Trundle wrestled his Luck Blade away from him, so the aboleth wouldn’t have the Wish. Kuru went all Gollum on them and ran away. Trundle used the wish to free his friend. The Luck Blade is now just a blade but they are going to keep it as a trophy.
  
  When Kuru got free of the mind-control, his player described him falling over in relief. He had a brief, strange interaction with the Lady of Pain, who I always narrate without words, just gestures that communicate plenty.

• The team journeyed with the villagers to Jusko’s abandoned ancestral home and handed it off to them, “You will owe me rent after 20 years but if I die, the land goes to all of you.” Bugwump sent the apprentices he was teaching the Fire Bolt cantrip to Wizard College on his own dime. Fun.

• Post adventure community tribunals are a fun way to go over the adventure. Killing Strahd was a big one and so, rather than meet in a plaza, they gathered in a public amphitheater. Bugwump lost his composure, raising his voice and turning an aggressive shade of purple when folks tried out some moral relativism concerning, “Was it right to kill Strahd?” The wizard is now on a committee to help discern when exactly someone is a monster.
  
  It was fun to get everyone’s take on the past months of gaming. It felt like returning after a long mission away. Jusko took Tefnek, their ranger-friend from Chult and Quarace, their Drider city-agent, aside and offered them coin, letting them know that their efforts saved the lives of the Sigil 6 and they were members of the group now. After Jusko’s disdain for their previous agent it is an interesting change of pace.

• For the record, Helewynn spent her time in Sigil eating delicious food, which we had decided was tasteless in the Shadowfell. We all agree Sigil cuisine would be exquisite. Helewynn’s player is going away on an exciting trip for a time, so we’re going to take on a different mission before heading to Gloomwrought to deal with Rahadin.

DM’s Notes: Felt like we put lots of threads to rest in satisfying ways. In a way this was the session when Curse of Strahd really felt over.

Next Game: ???

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In which the Sigil 6 agrees to do a bloody chore for a Drow Matron for use of the Old Githyanki Gate that her House currently controls.

Who are the Sigil 6 – Trundle, Helewynn, Bugwump, Kuru, Jusko and Failed Soldier and what have they been up to?

• They knew there was a gate up north due to Trundle’s scouting; also, it threw a blue light on the dark Shadowfell horizon. Keeping low so their flying steed’s wouldn’t show their silhouettes. Bugwump could tell that the gate had been created by Githyanki but had been abandoned (Githyanki frighten Bugwump!) and used by many different folk over time. Now it is owned by House Vandree, an innovative Drow house that owns a port city of the Underdark called Eämbar.

• Failed Soldier made a roll to see if any previous Outlands Expedition Teams had left any signs carved into a tree. Perception roll was solid and so yes, someone had a symbol carved into a tree that let them know something was buried under the tree. They found a small chest with a scroll written nearly a century ago by Doro, a blue Dragonblood Outlands Expedition Teamster, “You probably want to get out of this dark shit-hole. There is a gate nearby; carve the keystone like so and it will take you to Sigil.”

• They approached on foot, sending their friends back with the flying steeds and quickly ran into a Drow scouts led by a ranger on a giant spider. Language problems abounded, making things awkward until they got to the castle where the Captain Firin Falquan spoke common from her experience as a surface raider. She sent a message spell to the House Matron who was away.

• Jusko played his noble background up and presented himself as a Prince of House Hajek. His family had claimed a young world that Hajek had written his family name on in a previous adventure. They are known as a cross-planar power. I rolled to see if the Matron knew of them and she did. Jusko gave Caita, a wizard courtier, a piece of wax with Strahd’s signet ring.

• This was all kind of awkward and slow-going. The House Matron Melectix wanted to meet them beyond the gate in her citadel but the party wasn’t having it. Once Strahd’s signet was tossed out, the Matron met them. Failed Soldier (Passive Perception 28!) noticed that someone was near her who was invisible.
  
  We went back and forth a bit. Jusko tried to ask for reparations if the Devil bounty hunter had come through the gate and tried to harm them. Veiled threats were made concerning the werewolves and Bugwump’s half-trained wizards. Eventually, the Matron offered a deal: Kill a rival Matron who is a guest in her city and she will allow them to use the gate, changing the keystone for a time. “She is evil and you are all renowned monster slayers. You’d be doing the worlds a favor.”

• When offers like this are made we have to step out of game and have interesting conversations. Are the players interested in this job? Does it sound fun? Are the characters interested in this job? We talked it over and folks were interested.
  
  I made it clear that I hadn’t planned this and if they decided not to do it, my intricate Lego Drow City wouldn’t become useless after hundreds of hours of work. “There is no Lego Drow City,” I made clear. Talking it over, we decided to do it and that’ll be the next session. The Sigil 6 will kill one Drow Matron for another Drow Matron in order to get the villagers to safety faster.

Question of the Week

Most weeks I put up a question in the Thursday Night Gamer’s Facebook Group.

As we approach the northern gate that is lighting up the Shadowfell’s sky with unearthly blue light…

Dark Elves, the Starless Elves, the Drow.

What has your character heard about the elves of the Underdark who worship the Demon-Queen of Spiders, Lloth?

It need not be true.

Kuru’s Player

They lay spider eggs in the bodies of sacrifices to their Queen

Trundle’s Player

There are hybrids of elves and spiders that live in the deep. Since tunnels take effort, they are not centaur-large, but rather scorpion-sleek pit spiders.

Bugwump’s Player

The are the sad detritus of a once-fashionable demonic transformation craze.

Failed Soldier’s Player

Their Demon-Queen claims their souls, out of greed or for some useful purpose, who knows? This seems counter to the typical elven patterns. There are rumors of a faction that seeks to free the Drow from this fate.

Jusko’s Player

“Listen, I have had three mugs of Invisible Sasha’s Barking Vodka, it has made me devilishly handsome and a sage of all things, I will tell you vhat you need to know about Drow. First, they are all from space. No, I mean it, they live in the lands between the stars. The only difference between Sha..Che? Shoodoo Kai elfies.. yes yes Kuru.. the ones at the bridge, and ‘Drow’, is that Shoobie Dars Elves stayed in space. Space hermits. Worse than mountain hermits, if vou ask me. Air pressure thing.”

Another mug later..

“Leezen, ven Elfs get angry they become Drow. They get angry, they cook in hate’s oven, they go to space, they became Space Elves that ride giant fukking crows, and zen they come back here and are Drow. And then they fuck spiders. No it IZ true, Hellewyn. You come from the moon, how vould you even know?”

A few mugs and a sitar raga for bar fights later..

“Leeeezen, Trundle, this iz impotent. HA! I am drunk. This is IMPORTANT! Drow cheat at cards. They uze spiders to sneak a look at vhat you have and zen they cheat. My Uncle Vors Lost THREE boats in this way. I AM holding up three fingers, you can’t count in Common. Everybody know – dwarves only count in dwarfish. Vors! Smart uncle, mebbe second smartest uncle. He would only play cardz vit Drow on very sunny days because spiderz have terrible eyes in bright light, like the old or fascists. ASK ME HOW I KNOW, Kuru! I know thingz! I had a life before the Maze. Big important life.”

Closing time, his jacket missing for hours, a smear of lipstick on one cheek and drying barf on the other, and Wheatonesque levels of bed head already setting in. His breath is keeping him away from candles.

“You not body me after I die tonight Flo-dor. Am certain to die, yes. NO, no it is not drunk. Speaked of space elves before that misunderstanding with the Aboleth at the bar. She heard EVERYTHING, will tell all her friends. It -is- Anoleth. Barkeep called her Sheila – classic Aboleth name, and Aboleth and Drow? Forever friends. 4 evah. Word already spread, contract sign, assasins outside already likely. Pine box for us, at last. Any things that keen on many arms? They have club. Guarantee. Big door handles, need five hands torque meenimum. And secret knock! Have to knock more times than we can because many arms! Foolproof security. No way to mimic that. Genius. GRELL. Not Aboleth, Grell. Sheila classic Grell name, stupid Grell, need better cover story than ‘celebrate birthday alone and then cry’ NICE TRY SHEILA NO ONE HERE BUYING THAT SHIT. Not sad, bad lie! Grell can’t lie, everybody know that. Indecision loop – mostly brtain, bad design, basically floating neurosis with stupid beak. Fucking Sheila. Bad as cheating spidersexed space elves. Why is room spinning? DROWCURSED! My savings throw, it does nothing. OW The floor BIT ME. I will hold it, you go get city watch, this floor is under CITIZEN ARREST.”

Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Helewynn’s Player

Helewynn regards a drooling and snoring Jusko. She watches him for the span of 10 breaths, and then lets her gaze travel across the sleeping forms of the rest of the party.

She sighs heavily and whispers to the night sky, “Nonsense. All nonsense.”

Helewynn smiles, a secretive expression meant to be seen only by the stars burning silently overhead. “The dark cousins, they cannot turn to the left.”

Next Game: The Drow Job!

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In which we look at a few moments and decisions in the game, considering the techniques at hand.

Who are the Sigil 6 – Trundle, Helewynn, Bugwump, Kuru, Jusko and Failed Soldier and what have they been up to?

Let’s look over a few moments in the game and think about choices made. I’ve marinated on these for a while and want to think about them a bit more.

The moment below is from Session 2 of this arc, The Zombie Mob.

• While Helewynn, Kuru and Failed Soldier took flight to scout out the mob, Trundle, Bugwump and Brinne forded a river. I asked for a DC 10 Survival check and Trundle failed the roll. I decided that meant Trundle didn’t see zombies under the river’s mud lying in ambush. It was less of a failure and more of a complication due to a failed roll. Trundle and Bugwump made quick work of the zombies before they could ever attack. Bugwump’s spell seemed to create some kind of localized black hole (what was that spell?).

Trundle is nearly 10th level at this point. Maybe having him roll to ford the river was a mistake. I didn’t want him to fail to ford the river. In this case, I was using the skill roll to tell me if the greater power controlling the zombie mob (Orcus) had set up a trap beneath the river. If Trundle’s skill roll was good enough, he’d get the carriages ove the river without a problem. The roll becomes less, is Trundle a skilled enough Ranger to get carriages across a river and more of a, Hey, I’m not sure how thoroughly the villain has riddled this area with undead in the Shadowfell. Let’s let this roll tell me what I don’t know.

Even without 7-9 results from pbta, rolls don’t have to be telling you simply, “Is this character skilled enough to pull this off? YES OR NO?” The rolls can unveil things in the setting that you didn’t know were there. Now the table knows that Orcus is an ancient and fell power who leaves cache’s of undead to use centuries later. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Good to know.

As the DM, I don’t have to know everything. Sometimes the dice surprise me and tell me something cool and Trundle’s mystique is untarnished. Yeah, crossing a river is easy but crossing a river in the Shadowfell while the Demon-Prince of the Undead’s gaze is upon you after you and your friends killed Strahd and then announced it to the worlds is not.

Context, Cool Shit and Consequences at all times.

A meme to hammer the point into our brains and then on to the next!

This moment is from Session 8, The Bounty Hunters.

•  Trundle, Dwarf Ranger and Kuru, Halfling Arcane Trickster, made their rolls. Trundle came from a dwarven holdfast that was under siege from Devils. I asked him how one could tell when Devils were about to attack – he said that you could always smell the sulfur coming from the stones. Kuru said that he often has a sixth sense before an ambush; I said that for some reason it reminded him of the law coming down on his crew after a heist.

Perception rolls are failed by everyone at the table but 2 characters. Cool! I ask them why they know a Devil attack is about to occur. Even better because Trundle’s character’s back-story is that he came from a dwarven holdfast, Underhome, that was under constant siege from Devils. I’ve been wanting to use that for ages and ask Trundle’s player to flesh it out for me.

Kuru’s criminal background seems perfect for sniffing out an ambush, especially when he is usually the Ambusher and not the Ambushee.

It took two minutes and got added background I can use later if I want to tell those characters something, even without a roll if a failed result isn’t interesting to me or if the would-be-ambushers flub their roll or aren’t good at their trade. Or if I just want to put them in a spot.

“Kuru, you are getting that pre-ambush feeling; it is like a dagger in your skull.”

“Trundle, you know this prince is a Devil under a guise. You can smell it. What do you do?”

Back-story isn’t a process that ends after Session 0. It continues as the players learn about their characters. The stress-testing of adventuring will teach them things about these creations that they didn’t know and asking them questions will help everyone learn more about the cool shit they’ve made up (including the player, who might not have considered the question).

For me, good gaming has blank spaces, filling those spaces in with our friends is what it is about – whether those blanks are filled through the rolling of the dice or asking questions, as happened in the above examples.

If you have any moments where the dice told you something interesting that you did not know or where asking the players questions was rewarding, please share them in the comments if you’d like.

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In which the Sigil 6 comes face to face with Lord Soth and begins to plan moving 2000 villagers across the Shadowfell using every tool at hand.

Who are the Sigil 6 – Trundle, Helewynn, Bugwump, Kuru, Jusko and Failed Soldier?

• The Squires (what they call the village guard) called the town together to hear out the great heroes who are said to have killed Strahd. Everyone who wanted to speak was able to say something. I didn’t ask for a roll because I want the adventure to happen and don’t want the village not to agree to it because someone rolled a 2 at the wrong time. There wasn’t an interesting result for a failed die roll, so no dice were rolled.
  
  The villagers were given a day and a night to think it over.

• Failed Soldier detected undead, a ghast hiding in the unfinished, unconsecrated shell of a cathedral. Failed Soldier and Kuru followed the ghast and its chained ghouls to an abandoned farm where a family who worshipped Orcus had been driven out years ago. Kuru followed by stealth and Failed Soldier went back to gather the whole party.
  
  Kuru watched the Ghast report to Lord Soth, who was sharpening his blade while his banshee host floated in their sleep-meditation among the rafters of the old barn. Kuru found a good spot to snipe should he be called upon to turn the tide of an upcoming battle.

• Bugwump burned the ghouls into ash with a fireball as they approached and nearly killed the ghast as well. Then Jusko asked for a parley, hoping that Lord Soth’s knighthood would mean that the Death Knight would respect another knight. They met on a nearby family barrow.
  
  “Don’t do anything stupid unless I come running down the hill. If I do, bring all of the stupid.” Jusko left his sword with the group (I think he left it with Hellewynn) and Soth left it with his nightmare steed, despite the banshees telling him that it was surely a trap.

• “How heroic.”

  Lord Soth upon hearing about the Sigil 6’s plan to relocate the villagers.

• Having a cool conversation with a powerful evil creature is one of my favorite things in fantasy gaming. I call it Tea with a Lich. It started to drizzle as Jusko met Soth on the top of an old overgrown barrow. Soth was talking to the spirit of an ancestor of the folk who were forced out of town when Jusko approached; he got there in time to hear Soth dismiss the spirit of an Orcus disciple.

  They played Outlands Chess, played on a circular board with Sigil in the middle and the Lady of Pain occasionally floating across the board wreaking havoc. We rolled not to find out who won but to find out what they learned about one another. Jusko learned Soth’s hit point total from a class power (180HP) and also learned that he was Chaotic Evil but was the worst kind of CE; Soth thought he was Lawful Evil and the reason he had to break oaths was because of others lack of faith and grace. Asshole.
  
  Soth learned why Jusko had killed his apprentice, the evil act that turned him towards banditry and got him put in the Maze where he met the Sigil 6. Jusko gave Soth back the chestplate he had found in Strahd’s castle and Soth agreed that he would stay out of this affair with the town marching north for as long as he could and would give warning if he had to get involved. Awesome stuff was said. It was a really fun scene.
  
  The Death Knight suggested that they kill the Ghast, a guide to the Shadowfell assigned from Orcus’ court. Bugwump did so with a shiny new daylight spell.
  
  Jusko’s player does this cool thing where he gives bad-ass NPC’s weight. The player described Jusko taking a drink when he got back from talking to Soth and his hand shaking.

• Trundle’s player is a craftsman and wanted to know if there was any interesting material to utilize to make something now or later. I pulled Hellewynn in and some stone-carvers showed them a block of stone from the moon. Trundle chipped off a hunk of moon stone to carve something later.
  
  “We were going to carve a warrior like you, one of the Moon’s Chosen so that even in the Shadowfell, we would have a moon in the sky.”
  
  “A nice gesture but far from the Bright Lady’s glory. How did you get this here?”
  
  “When the original siblings came here from the Heavens, they were powerful paladins and many thought their plan to bring light to the Shadowfell had merit. Angels brought us this stone, commanded by gods.”
  
  When Helewynn is within 50 feet of this hunk of moon-rock she can turn into a werewolf.

• Jusko asked questions about the fighting capability of the town; it wasn’t great. Failed Soldier asked about the original 3 knights, who have become an undead being (Skull Lord) called the 3 Who Are 1. A squire talked about how they pointed to a bandit leader and that bandit died and came back as a zombie.
  
  The Sigil 6 got together and had dinner, just the player characters. Jusko suggested that Helewynn turn some villagers into werewolves. We talked about Bugwump teaching those who could learn the Fire Bolt cantrip. The table is affectionately referring to this campaign arc as Oregon Trail.
  
  We ended the game discussing infecting villagers with lycanthropy and deciding if the group wants to jump on the 3 Who Are 1 before the sibling paladins turned undead abomination jumps the villagers as they try to leave.

DM’s Notes: I fucking love Tea with a Lich. There needs to be a name for when players take all of the different elements at the table and make something amazing that you never expected.

Next Game: The map…

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