Arc 4

Idolan - 12/20/7996
Arrive in Myford

"oh good ill make sure to have everything ready. is she okay, is there anything i need to do?" - beth ann

Your daughter was injured and lost her tail. she thinks its a birth defect and doesnt respond well to people pointing out her delusion" -thana

"Oh no, i thought something might have happened to her but she hasn't come home. as long as she's okay that's all that matters." - beth ann

Adventure Log 3.18.2020
Two weeks ago:

Celandine had messaged Irvin’s sister, asking if she could trust Irvin. Understandably the answer was NO. According to her Irvin was responsible for the death of their family, and needs to be investigated. After pondering this for a bit, Cel asked Irvin a few questions, and fessed up to messaging his sister. Irvin explained that his sister killed his family, after he told them about his sword talking to him. He had two older brothers and one younger sister. His Dad is still alive but he doesn’t know about his mother. Thankfully he wasn’t mad at Cel for talking to his sister but he advised caution in any further communication.

Irvin had a brilliant thought: What if they told his sister to go visit the vampire infested city? Maybe the two problems would cancel each other out. Cel is a little shit and agreed this was a wonderful solution. So she messaged Val (Who gave her this spell? It will cause so much trouble). Oh Fuck, he responded. Val is 1. Not dead, and 2. No longer in the vampire city. The plan to send Irvin’s sister to the city won’t work now.

Immediately after hearing from Val, Cel went to find Thana. Thankfully she thought better of telling her. Instead she panicked and told Khaliya.

Back to when the boat arrives in Idolan:

A month after Thana offered to give Irvin the helm back, he asked Thana to return it to him. Like most conversations between those two, there was lots of miscommunication. It ended with Thana throwing the helm at him and storming out. Riley Jo was, understandably, upset that Irvin had the helm again.

“I’m still pretty sure he's a bad guy.”- Riley Jo

“I'm not saying he's the model citizen.” - Thana

At some point before leaving the boat (because honestly with that flashback time got very confusing) Thana talked to Cel, and gave her that mysterious key from her backstory, for “safe keeping”. It seemed like she had more to say, but in the end she didn’t.

Safely off the boat, the party made its way to find Terrance, the dude who made Riley Jo’s prosthetics. He’s a tiny tickering halfling with a propensity for blowing shit up. To be polite, Irvin, Khaliya and Thana decided to stay somewhere else for the night. Cel and Riley Jo spent the night at Terrance’s house.

Khaliya stayed in a dive bar type inn, the Dry Cauldron, and did her usual thing of listening to the local bards. Irvin and Thana decided to spend some of their gold and spent the night in a fancy inn. While there, Irvin told her straight up that forcing a conversation won’t help when getting to know someone; that shit’s organic.

Thana asks what people want or need because it’s what she knows how to do, so while both of them agree it’s messed up Irvin tries to leave the impression that taking care of yourself is a priority if you want to keep helping others. When asked what she wanted Thana exclaimed she wanted to forget, and Irvin came up with the wonderful idea that they should get drunk.

“I actually poured this on a guy’s crotch once.”- Thana

“Why would you waste wine like that? Drink all the wine and hit him over the head with the bottle, don’t waste the wine! ”- Irvin

Meanwhile Riley Jo went out to get Terrance some actual food. This gave Cel the opportunity to ask Terrance a few questions. Lore Drop: Riley Jo edition. Between two and three years ago, Terrance found Riley Jo, completely beat up, with a newly missing tail. He nursed her back to health and made her prosthetics. He also lied to her. He said that she had killed all the bandits (including Chosk, the evil wizard) so that Riley Jo wouldn’t look for them again.

So yeah, the missing tail and claws aren’t a birth defect, Riley Jo is lying to herself again. It’s also been several years since Riley Jo saw her mom. Realizing that Beth Anne might like a head’s up, and that the party should also know about this, she sent a message to Thana--who by that point was well and truly drunk with Irvin. Cel then sent a very vague message to Beth Anne.

The next morning the entire party, sans Riley Jo, held an emergency meeting about what the fuck to do. The MVP was Irvin who actually knows what PTSD is. His suggestion was to ask Beth Anne to lie about it, and play along with Riley Jo’s delusions. Khaliya was firmly against that. In the end Thana sent a message to Beth Anne, warning her about the prosthetics.

After that conversation, the group said goodby to Terrance, picked up Riley Jo’s prosthetics and left town. They traveled, and true to their luck had to fight some bandits during the night. Due to some lucky rolls, we got a dope magic item. Thana can cast greater restoration and a few other spells as a bonus action.

12/22/7996
Beth Ann going to stay in Himiota with her friend Lynn.

Dyolet Mounds (Mid Level). Corbar Murnig (chaotic neutral, male, forest gnome mage) attempted to grow a new kind of dyolet with magic. His experiment resulted in shambling mounds made of dyolet plants that terrorize the Thicket. The gnomes allow the characters into the forest if the adventurers slay the plant monsters.

"hey Jheri i know you haven't heard from me but stuff happened and i need to know if you're okay" "everythings fine here, is there a reason it shouldn't be?"

Log
Beth Anne is a seamstress. Her home is incredibly cozy with lots of blankets and stuff. Riley Jo hadn’t been home in years. Her mom was sad that she had to go so soon but “I knew your father for years. I'm used to this.”

The party decided to stay at The Fungi Inn, run by Robby and Monroe Cota, two halflings. Because Riley Jo was gonna stay the night with her mom, the party eventually decided to get two rooms. Irvin and Cel got a room, and Thana and Khaliya got the other.

Group discussion: What do we do now? Riley Jo made a very good point in which Chosk should be dealt with at some point. Right now the party would probably die if they tried again. Since they had just checked in on Cel and Riley Jo’s family Cel suggested they check in on everyone else’s families. Khaliya claimed that her family at the monastery was fine...but a simple insight check proved that wrong. Cel was a little shit and asked Irvin if he wanted to check in on his family--yeah no, that wasn’t happening since he has the power to choose.

Surprisingly Thana decided to reach out to her family, messaging her adoptive mother. “Hey Jheri, I know you haven’t heard from me but stuff happened and I want to know if you’re okay.” Jheri said she was fine, and asked if she should be worried; a god awful insight check backed up that she was okay. So there is clearly no need to go check in on her.

“So Val’s not dead.” Cel’s average wisdom (let’s be real here, it’s Matt’s low wisdom) decided that now was the time to bring that up! Reactions varied, but most of the group was confused why on earth Cel messaged him. That pretty much ended the conversation, because Riley Jo stormed off.

A few small conversations happened. Riley Jo basically told Thana she needed therapy. Cel tried to check in with Khaliya to confirm her family was really okay, but that conversation just ended in awkwardness. To avoid socializing Khaliya went off to the woods to meditate. This left Irvin, Cel and Thana at the bar.

Riley Jo went back to her mom’s place, so that they could talk without embarrassing baby stories being included; tiny Riley Jo got stuck in a tree once! It might have been better if her friends were there, because she freaked the fuck out when Beth Anne confessed she had never met Terrance formally.

Panicking, Riley Jo went to Thana. She thought that her mom had been replaced by a doppelganger, or had her memories modified. Thana used her necklace to cast greater restoration on Riley Jo, which resulted in her having two sets of childhood memories: one set where she had a tail, one set where she didn’t. These new memories, and the fact that she had magic cast on her, really didn’t help Riley Jo calm down. Now convinced Thana was also replaced by a doppelganger, she ran to the house of her ex-girlfriend, Josie.

Thana immediately let Cel and Irvin know what was up. Irvin called out Thana for casting magic on Riley Jo when she knew she didn’t like magic (it was really discord’s fault, but c’est la vie). For backstory reasons Thana did not react well, and ended up slapping Irvin.

Cel, Thana, and Irvin asked Beth Anne if she knew where Riley Jo might go. They went to Josie’s parents’ house, messaging Khaliya on the way. Once they confirmed that Riley Jo was at Josie’s the group’s brain cell made an appearance. It might not be a good idea to send people Riley Jo thought had been replaced by dopplegangers, or someone who raised a totally not creepy spectre. So Cel went alone, meeting Khaliya there. They managed to get Riley Jo to agree to talk to the entire group back at the inn.

To prove everyone was actually who they claimed to be, Cel used detect thoughts. She learned a lot, but there wasn’t enough time to unpack that. Irvin was actually the best person to help Riley Jo, since he knows what PTSD is and gave the party an info/ therapy session. After Riley Jo calmed down a bit, she went back to talk to her mom, Cel and Irvin decided to go grab some dinner, and Khaliya dealt with Thana’s inevitable mental breakdown.

Lore drop: Thana edition ft Khaliya. Hoping to help, Khaliya shared the story of how she helped teach an unconventional monk. “He was there to tell stories. As soon as I tried to teach him that way, he had so many stories, and he connected better. My way of helping, did not suit him.” But failing to help the group was only part of the reason Thana was breaking down--she had deeper trauma.

“He [Lucan] wasn’t nice, and maybe that's why I’m having such trouble and holding on to sadness. Hell, I faked a smile because of that bastard!”

“How have you tried processing all of this? Or have you?”

“I don’t need to talk to people to process, I just need to be around people.”...“It's not the only coping mechanism I have. The other ones no one is going to be happy with. Not even me.”

12/23/7996
went to the job board in town and saw two interesting postings: they decided to go after the dragon today before heading to Hulmiota tomorrow morning, killed the dragon and got its hoard but it almost killed thana in one hit. Riley Jo got the killing blow by leaping on its back and stabbing her rapier through its spinal collumn. They spent the time to get 9 teeth, 12 claws, and 50 lbs of dragon scales. they also got a claw and 2 teeth from the ancient dragon.
 * old man joseph saw a red dragon to the north east
 * old man joseph historically tells a lot of unproven tales, but he used to be an adventurer and has a dragon slayers greatsword
 * Deep in the Hulmiota thicket is an enclave of gnome were-druids who have kept themselves closed off from the rest of society. Recently though the village of Hulmiota on the coast has been trying to expand into the edge of the thicket due to their growing population and encroached on the enclaves protected territory.

thana sent a message to to thana and irvin's father "papa, its thana. i met a soldier named wolfe, do you know about him? does he hate our family? i miss you, hope you're safe" "Wolfe? I knew a Thomas Wolfe who was a scientist before the war, but he went off the map over a decade ago ago"

celandine messages Sharvis

Log
The next morning, Thana went off on her own to a secluded section of the woods, to dance. Once the group got back together, Khaliya summed up the group's feelings with, “Can we please go kill something?”

The town’s job board had two main jobs: one was for helping the guards in Hulmiota, and the other was about a possible dragon sighting from Caelkirk’s resident old coot. Because the party was already leaving for Hulmiota the next day, they went over to see if Old Man Joseph’s account was full of shit. As it turns out, he was actually telling the truth this time. Thana and Khaliya stayed behind a bit and listened to Joseph tell a story about a white dragon. He gave the party a badass dragon slaying sword. Despite Beth Anne’s protests, the party decided to go after the prospect of a dragon that day, and go toward Hulmiota the next.

In the wood’s Irvin made a squirrel friend, Hazel. They were very helpful in finding the red dragon. Did you know that fire breath will fuck you up? Irvin was crazy and started to charge toward it, Thana went down in the first round, but was brought back up by Cel. For most of the fight Thana, Khaliya, and Riley Jo stayed nicely out of the melee, while Cel and Irvin stabbed the dragon. Riley Jo saw her friends getting beat up, and decided to jump on top of the dragon and managed to get the kill.

Between harvesting the dead dragon and looting his horde the party got: 8 dragon teeth, 11 claws, 50 pounds of red scales, 2 ancient dragon teeth, 10 magic crossbow bolts, spell scroll of banishment, oil of etherealness, a potion of superior healing, and some money. Khaliya seemed very distant during the dragon harvesting, and the party totally needs to check on her. Cel and Thana stayed behind to take a nap, while the other three went to get the loot (BUDDY SYSTEM). Never leave these two alone, the consequences of them both having the sending spell is a lot. Honestly, it started out as a conversation about their shared crush on Irvin...but it ended up being a questioning session about his family.

Thana messaged her father and learned who Irvin’s dad could be: Thomas Wolfe. This was confirmed when Cel messaged Irvin’s sister, and gave her rank as a lieutenant instead of her name. Another message confirmed they were members of something called The Simic, and apparently he’s got to answer for “what he did”--whatever that means.

Thana and Irvin finally had a conversation that didn’t end badly. They even found something to agree on, Cel is a horrible liar.

12/24-30/7996
27th

Cel messaged Landri and Thana messaged Jheri and Val.

Log
The party made its way to Hulmiota, a small town, to drop off Beth Anne and see about a potential job. The leader of the town guard, Jamar, had made the job posting. Apparently there had been a series of attacks on the town by a group of druids. The attacks started after the former mayor died. Obviously having angry druids set buildings on fire is not an ideal situation for the town to be in.

After accepting the job, most of the party had a few drinks--we learned Riley Jo is a lightweight. Thankfully the monk didn’t get drunk and noticed the building that was burning. The townspeople had a handle on the fire, so the party went charging off into the woods to catch the arsons. We caught a stubborn gnome druid! Irvin used detect thoughts to find out where the rest of them lived.

The next morning the group + stubborn gnome went to go to talk to the Elders of the druids. Lilna, the elder of them, said that the forest was sacred. She and the former mayor had an agreement to have a town, but not disrespect the forest by more expansion. She agreed to talk to the new leader of the town about maybe renegotiating the deal.

There’s one problem, the town doesn’t have a new leader. They had to hold an election. Riley Jo knew one of the candidates was a criminal, so she and Cel broke into his house to find incriminating evidence. They found proof of tax fraud, which isn't the highest crime but it was enough to do the job. Thanks to them the other candidate won. She is the religious leader and a follower of Wakeen, goddess of trade.

Thana and Khaliya had a little chat. Khaliya managed to avoid answering so many questions about dragons and backstory. If Khaliya needed someone to keep secrets, Thana said she’d be glad to keep them safe

Evening Therapy time! First up is Irvin and Thana. It started off nicely, just a simple Lute lesson. Then Thana started dancing. The act of dancing seems to cause her a lot of pain which Irvin obviously noticed. He pointed out that doing something that hurts you is not a good idea, and if her legs haven’t healed after all this time it may be a mental thing. Basically Thana wants to seek out help, but has no clue if doing that this instant is a good idea.

Cel really needs to work on her timing of asking questions, because it's not a good idea to poke someone's backstory when they are already stressed. She asked “Hey, are you a weird messed up science experiment?” To which Irvin managed to avoid answering like a pro...but at least we learned his sister's name is Shavaris.

Candlenights 7997
Beth Ann made everyone matching scarves with their initials in them.

Cel
For Thana: a rewritten song"Just help your next good friend""Cast a spell, smite a foe""It is all that you can to heal""Your next hurt friend""We won't look too far ahead""It's too much for us to plan""But break it down to this next breath, this next day""This next fight is one that we can win""So I'll walk through this night""Stumbling blindly toward the light""And do the next right thing""And, with it done, what comes then?""When it's clear that everything will never be the same again""Then I'll make the choice to hear that voice""And do the next right thing"For Khaliya: headlamp of continual flame

Riley Jo: a book, "the Adventures of Riley Jo Pendleton" to write down her story

Irvin: offering to help with the fake spellbook/teach him to be a wizard. and also the sending page of her spellbook

Riley Jo
Gives everyone sanddollars painted with different patterns. Can be used to scry, bypassing the non-detection amulet.

Thana
For Khaliya: feather of protection (+1 AC)

For Cel: hat that looks like Lily

For Riley Jo: stuffed phoenix (cast calm emotion at a range of self)

For Irvin: a skull and a blue book with blank pages for “wizard” spells

Khaliya and Irvin are bad friends and didn't get people anything (jk)
Thana spoke to Irvin and messaged her father twice.

Aaaaaaand through the power of friendship and found family, you level up!

1/1/7997
Decide to head back to Lourcana

Adventure Log 5/6/2020
Khaliya talked to Beth Anne about how to cope with someone you care about just being gone. It turns out Riley Jo’s dad leaving was a little more complicated than she knows about. Cas left to protect his family. After that conversation Khaliya went and wrote a note.

Irvin was sad during candle nights; it was an anniversary of some kind.

Candlenights! Gifts
 * Cel
 * Irvin: promise of teaching to be wizards, her sending spell so she can’t abuse it
 * Thana: Rewritten song
 * Khaliya: Headlamp
 * Riley Jo: A book to write her adventures in
 * Thana
 * Irvin: A skull, and a new spell book
 * Khaliya: metal feather charm
 * Cel: a hat that looks like Lily
 * Riley Jo: phoenix plushie that casts Calm Emotions on herself
 * Riley Jo
 * Everyone: Sand Dollars she painted, so we can scry on them to find each other
 * Beth Anne
 * Scarves with everyone’s initials on them

Lots of messages were sent for the holidays. Thana contacted both her adopted mom and her bio dad. Jheri is fine, and she hasn’t seen Lucan in a while. Thana’s dad is less fine. He’s in prison because he tried to warn her mom about the attack on their town. She also sent a message to Val. He actually apologized for his actions when he left.

Before deciding what to give Irvin for Candlenights, and in general what to do about Irvin, Cel checked in with Landri. Thankfully Nyfi isn’t at war with Sadian, although it is secretly helping Kelnys. There haven’t been any more sightings of weird fish people.

After the eternal debate of where to go next, the party decided to head to Lourcana to see if they can find more info about Chosk. Irvin has too many issues to go to Sadian right now, and Thana is willing to put off going to Kelnys for a bit.

1/13/7997
irvin got 2 dragontooth daggers made - 1400gp total

irvin asked his patron where to go next and they want him to head to galgarad