<![CDATA[A-to-J Connections - Drink Talk Roll]]>

<![CDATA[A-to-J Connections - Drink Talk Roll]]>Wed, 20 Nov 2024 18:07:41 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Even Stranger Things | Drink Talk Roll StrageBound Ep. 2 (Halloween 2024 Special Pt .2)]]>Mon, 18 Nov 2024 19:16:07 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/even-stranger-things-drink-talk-roll-stragebound-ep-2-halloween-2024-special-pt-2

Part two of our incorrectly named one-shot StrangeBound is here. The players find out the secrets of the Ape-iary and proceed to explore the town in search of the golden keys to get their Super Genesis.

00:00:00 - Start
00:00:04 - We Are Live!
00:02:12 - Intro / Recap
00:05:39 - Play Starts
00:11:13 - Entering The Ape-iary
00:30:39 - Combat with the Apes (Flashing Light Warning)
00:43:33 - End Flashing Lights
00:58:47 - Beneath the Ape-iary
01:26:42 - Back in Town
01:34:41 - Meeting Wally
01:47:02 - Break Time
01:52:07 - Walking with Wally
02:01:46 - Heading to School
02:10:48 - Another Quick Break
02:13:40 - Back to School
02:24:10 - To Be Continued?

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 11/8 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[The First Annual DTR Halloween Special | Drink Talk Roll StrangeBound Ep. 1]]>Fri, 01 Nov 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/the-first-annual-dtr-halloween-special-drink-talk-roll-strangebound-ep-1

Drink Talk Roll's current campaign is a bit over a year strong at this point, but Manuel's two session absence prompted the discussion of what was going to fill those sessions. Instead of going on a long hiatus (which we have done in the past) we decided to created a one-off, or two-off as it were, campaign instead! Check this out and be sure to catch it's (possible!) conclusion next week!

00:00:00 - Start
00:00:04 - This Stream Is Cursed
00:00:43 - Player Intros
00:04:51 - Strangebound Begins
00:08:42 - Character Creation
00:46:10 - Starting the Scavenger Hunt
00:57:37 - Checking Out the Pizza Parlor
01:24:41 - Finding Frank's
01:46:42 - To the Ape-iary
02:01:36 - The Lessons of Today's Session
02:07:26 - Wrapping Up
02:11:41 - Keep On Rolling

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 10/25 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Craning Day | Drink Talk Roll #68 (Arretin Campaign #22)]]>Fri, 18 Oct 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/craning-day-drink-talk-roll-68-arretin-campaign-22

This is the twenty-first session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! The party, now with Sirocco and the Nicoles, goes through the Valley of the Mists and ultimately find themselves at the Crane Monastery. After some character development and role-playing, the party finds Vecna's bff... No more details, watch for the rest! Consider catching us live to get the full, unedited DTR experience! The DM may change, the players may change, but we'll always be rolling!

DM:
J.D.

Players:
Manuel (Amra The Harbinger)
Hao (Sirocco The Cleric)
Pleiades (Khorr The Rogue)
Warren (Jedah The Gunslinger)

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 10/11 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #22: Craning Day]]>Fri, 18 Oct 2024 00:35:59 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-22-craning-day

Session Recap

Picking up right where the last session ended, the silhouette the party saw in the mist is revealed to be…an old man who says he’s on a journey to the Crane Monastery. He says he’s visiting an old friend at the monastery but has gotten lost in the foggy valley. Believing the monastery to be back in Meridan, Amra gives him the incorrect directions and he takes off. As he leaves, the party notices he is wearing a strange backpack that looks more like a shell.

Inspired by their recent interactions with both the traveler and the monks in the city, the party decides to make a short detour to the Crane Monastery and heads up to a hilltop to find their way. Sirocco is able to find the path and thinks it would be better for them to camp for the night and make for the monastery in the morning. The party listens to him and heads to sleep. Luckily for them, the little chaos resulting from the overlap with the Feywild is the only danger of the night.

After everyone wakes up, they set out for the Crane Monastery and find out it doesn’t take them as long to get there as Sirocco had suggested the night before. It turns out that despite his priestly training, he’s bad with numbers. (Maybe it’s all the drinking? It would definitely explain Manuel.) At the gates, they are greeted by one of the monks and after explaining that they came to investigate any connection between the monastery and the crane-marked blade Amra took off the Masked Man after their battle with him in Rashin.

Leader of the monastery, Suzanne Kudelia, notes that the crane on it is indeed the same crane they base their lifestyle and martial arts on. While they might have some claim to it, she believes that Amra should keep it and try to forge a closer connection with the blade by meditating with it in one of their buildings. Amra quickly excuses himself to go do that and the rest of the party goes passes the time in different ways.

Khorr decides to research the Divine Tree and its nuts in the monastery archives. He and Talliyah go through multiple tomes before finally finding one on the Forest of the Gods and the Orine people who inhabit. He learns more about how they were a native people of Hozumi who were displaced to the few northernmost islands after the Arato people crossed the Storming Sea after a civil war in Shunil. He also learns that they worship the Two-Faced God,a god of balance of life and death, and hold that concept of balance to be sacred while seeking to minimize waste. With all of that and more, Khorr feels he’s prepared for their upcoming journey.

Sirocco, on the other hand, decides to have a fun time drinking with anyone who will join him. He visits nearly every monk in the monastery. He even ventures into the subbasement and finds some monks practicing kata around a coppery crane statue. Eventually, he just retires and keeps drinking.

Jedah decides to join Amra in the meditation chamber but he seeks to deal with the still fresh wounds of his falling out with the Blacktooth Pirates. In the chamber, he feels a calmness and a sensation like every veil has been lifted off from him. He remembers his days running with his old crew, the Triad of Jacks, how they started working with Blacktooth and how one job went south after they stole the wrong treasure: a strange rusted spear tip that got thrown in one of the other Jack’s magic bags before they were caught by the authorities and thrown in prison. Then, the events catch up to the start of the campaign and eventually, the clash in the arena with Captain Blacktooth. At this point, Jedah is left with his own thoughts as to whether he should wallow in this or move on.

Finally, in the meditation chamber, Amra feels many of the same feelings of calmness like there is no external pressure on him. It feels just like the Dola Sanctuary the party visited on their journey to Ikana. He meditates focusing on the sword is eventually met in a sort of mental realm by a fiery crane that speaks in a shrieking voice. It asks him why he desires power and what he plans to do with it.

Then, it seeks to test him “as fire tests metal.” It summons forth multiple figures some with weapons drawn and waits to see if he attacks. When he doesn’t, one of the figures begins to attack him. When he still refuses to attack, a figure begins to attack an innocent bystander in the situation and finally, Amra attacks. After striking through the foes as they attack, the crane reappears and congratulates Amra on taking the first step towards unlocking the blade’s true power.

With all of that done, the party goes to sleep. They are offered bunks in a guest building but Amra decides to sleep outside the meditation chamber where some of the effect is still tangible.

Some time during the night, Amra and Sirocco are both woken up to the sounds of the front gates opening and spot three robed figures sneaking into the main chambers. Amra moves up behind them and eventually figures out that they’re the same kind of raiders as the ones who attacked Meridan and Erezel. They alert the others and follow the intrudes down through the archives and into the subbasement where the intruders are found gathered around the crane statue and chanting just like the cultists encountered on the Axida Plains.

Combat begins almost immediately. Amra attunes himself to his blade and discovers the new power he awakened within it. With the command word spoken, he begins to exude a fiery aura in the shape of crane wings that grants him a fly speed and allows him to deal a small amount of damage with each attack. Sirocco meanwhile just lies down in combat and casts buffs on everyone that as he notes require them all to work together peacefully. It’s definitely an interesting party.

Without having to worry about tying anyone down or saving anyone from kidnapping, this combat against the raiders goes quickly. When the final one is cut down, he grabs on to the Amra and uses their blood to complete the ritual. With his final breath, the raider says, “Another seal broken.” The crane statue disappears and in its place, a tall humanoid figure with purple skin and tentacles coming out of its head appears: a mind flayer. It is able to do some damage but thanks to their new shared connections via Sirocco, the party is able to resist the mind flayer’s psionic attacks and put it down quickly. The party collects 1200 gold of various materials off the bodies and the session ends.

Ghost Drawer

Generally, this is the part where I talk about what went into building something in the session and maybe offer some advice but it’s been a busy week for me and there’s another thing I want to talk about in fewer words: We finally got character art from my friend TinyGhost. Check them out online on Twitter (@tinygh0stt) and Twitch (tinygh0stt). They’re a great artist and a really fun streamer to watch.

Here are their pictures of Amra, Jedah, and Khorr:

You’ll see them in our tokens and on our new “Be Right Back” / map-less roleplaying screen. You might notice that there’s no art for Sirocco or Ulrich. I offered to get art of Sirocco as well but Hao thought it would better sell his place as a temporary member of the group if he looked a little off. He has since made a few adjustments to better match Ghostie’s style with the shading. As for Ulrich, his art is still coming but both Ghostie and I agreed that it could be placed on the backburner while he was dead and allow them to get these pieces done before our month-long break. I can’t wait for you all to see Ulrich’s art as well.

We are all very happy with what we got. Ghostie was accommodating of all our weird requests and was one a similar wavelength to us from the get go. I still remember their asking if we wanted Ulrich (RIP) to be smugger in his art when not more than fifteen minutes earlier, Hao had jokingly said that he wanted Ulrich to be smugger. They were even open to some last-minute suggestions like the lionhead and blood gems on Jedah’s guns.

So, thank you again, Ghostie. Your art is amazing. I hope we can work together again in the future.

Well, that’s it for this edition of Drink Talk Roll Extended. Unless Pleiades (and maybe Warren) want to write their own versions, I expect this will be off until the campaign reconvenes in November. So, until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[School of Sirocco | Drink Talk Roll #67 (Arretin Campaign #21)]]>Fri, 04 Oct 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/school-of-sirocco-drink-talk-roll-67-arretin-campaign-21

This is the twenty-first session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! The party tries their best to get over the death of Ulrich. Khorr takes his body to a morgue, and Amra makes sure The Headmaster faces justice. The trip to the morgue eventually leads to a bar called The Black Whirlwind where they meet... No more details, watch for the rest! Consider catching us live to get the full, unedited DTR experience! The DM may change, the players may change, but we'll always be rolling!

DM:
J.D.

Players:
Manuel (Amra The Harbinger)
Hao (???? The ????)
Pleiades (Khorr The Rogue)
Warren (Jedah The Gunslinger)

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 9/27 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #21: School of Sirocco]]>Thu, 03 Oct 2024 11:02:13 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-21-school-of-sirocco

Session Recap

Picking up where last session left off, the living party members continued mourning Ulrich’s death in the last battle. They quickly and sadly divvied up his things. Some for sentimental value. Some for their value for the quest. They also searched the mysterious attackers finding only a dagger with an intricate snake pattern on it. It seems they weren’t coming down for much more than a raid. Under their masks, these raiders had the same sickly green Elf-like appearance and black paint on their faces.

Amra once again interrogated Headmaster of the School of Continued Progress Calvyn Silvergard about his knowledge of the raid and the raiders. Calvyn claimed to know nothing about who they were or why they raided this SCP grounds. He didn’t even think anyone would have that kind of airship technology for at least a century. Amra finally decided it was time to turn in Headmaster Silvergard to the proper authorities and took care of that while Khorr saw to Ulrich’s funeral arrangements.

At the funeral parlor, Khorr began to regret that he didn’t know enough about Ulrich to know what kind of coffin he would want. An offhand comment from the parlor worker about how it would take a miracle worker to bring their friend back set off the idea in Khorr’s mind. He quickly learned from the worker that he had heard from a guy who heard from a guy (and so on) about a miracle worker. It was all a little fuzzy because he was getting drunk at a tavern known as the Black Whirlwind.

The party quicky arranged for some temporary storage of the body while they sought out that tavern and hopefully the miracle worker. They found it a lively place with the monks of the Crane Monastery celebrating their own victories and losses in the recent raid. Khorr started drinking with their leader Suzanne Kudelia that talked about loss and the monastery’s principals of reciprocity which fully cements the desire to resurrect Ulrich.

As this was going on, Jedah and Amra were drinking in the tavern when Jedah noticed a figure sitting in the back where shady figures always sit wearing a robe with the same snowflake symbol of the Winter Court on the hood. Going over to interrogate, they find the mysterious figure is a woman and a Shadow Elf like them. She seems slightly familiar to Jedah but he can’t pinpoint why.

They ask why she wasn’t toasting Ulrich when the rest of the tavern was doing so. She asks about Ulrich’s last name and realizes that Ulrich is dead and she’s talking to his companions. She starts panicking slightly as she tells them they either have to come back to the Winter Court with her now or flee because Darius the Winter Court Soldier will be coming after them to reclaim them forcefully. They do their best to convince her to cover for them for as long as she can to give them a head start. She agrees to do so just as Jedah and Amra are whisked out the door.

While Khorr had been drinking with the Crane Monks, he was also talking to the bartender who said he was the one who knows the miracle worker who can bring Ulrich back from the dead. From what he heard, they would have to bring an offering of wine to the church up on the hill and the guy will see them. He sells them the wine and offers to accompany the party up to the church. At the church, he reveals that he’s the miracle worker. His name is Sirocco. He’s a cleric in service of the nature goddess Arisa. He’s also the new party member played by Hao.

Sirocco asks them to hand over a nut from the Divine Tree as a material component. The whole party looks at each other but none of them knew that. Sirocco explains to them that if they don’t have it, they’re going to have to retrieve it from the Divine Tree in the Forest of the Gods on an island in Hozumi. For a small price, he’s willing to accompany them to Hozumi and help them retrieve the nut.

The party agrees and spends some time wondering what to do with the Robins which Jedah and Amra have only just realized aren’t automata themselves. After tracking down the third Robin in Meridan, they party consulted the Sisters for their opinion and they said that they didn’t care where they went as long as they were all together in one place. The party decided to take them along in case they accidentally attracted any more raids.

With that, the party set out southward through the Valley of the Mist towards the city-state of Terna. As the fog rolled in over the party, Amra immediately felt uneasy as he realized this area was a point of overlap with the Feywild. Up ahead in the distance, Amra spotted something vaguely humanoid approaching them…. And, that’s where the session ended.

Short Rest

You may have noticed the part of the session where I pointed out, “We’re probably not going to have combat tonight.” I figured that after the last session ended with the loss of Ulrich and this one would start with their mourning, I decided it was probably right to have an unexciting session and I think that was for the best.

I love sessions with thrilling life or death combat or some kind of perilous adventure across hostile terrain but these kinds of sessions are useful too or even tense social situations like a party where the fate of kingdoms could be on the line. Pacing at its best is almost always peaks of tension and then valleys of relaxation to allow those things to properly sink in.

This session in particular gave the characters time to decompress and explore how they handle their grief. Ulrich’s death may end up being Amra’s Uncle Ben moment that takes him off his slide into despicability and moves him towards the path of a hero. On the flip side, I wasn’t entirely sure of what Sirocco’s personality was going to be like but having him and being a source of energy when everyone was down also allowed for things to start picking up just as they got the hope that they could bring Ulrich back. I’m looking forward to seeing how he meshes with the group and hopefully, brings some peace and order to them.

Well, that’s it for this week. Stay safe. Have fun and until next time, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[Half-Elf On Fire | Drink Talk Roll #66 (Arretin Campaign #20)]]>Fri, 20 Sep 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/half-elf-on-fire-drink-talk-roll-66-arretin-campaign-20

This is the twentieth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! The party decides to gain evidence that'll uncover the nefarious doings of The Headmaster. Things go okay until some masked men show up. And then there's the death of a friend.... No more details, watch for the rest! Consider catching us live to get the full, unedited DTR experience! The DM may change, the players may change, but we'll always be rolling!

DM:
J.D.

Players:
Manuel (Amra The Harbinger)
Hao (Ulrich The Warlock)
Pleiades (Khorr The Rogue)
Warren (Jedah The Gunslinger)

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 9/13 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #20: Half-Elf on Fire]]>Thu, 19 Sep 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-20-half-elf-on-fire

Session Recap

After destroying the mechanical dragon at the end of last session, the party moved through the streets of Meridan avoiding too much attention from guards and civilians as they took the unconscious Calvyn Silvergard with them to their room at the Green Tavern. Over the course of the next few hours, Amra began repenting for his actions and restoring his bond with Favel. Amra and Jedah kept watch of him in their room and when he woke in the morning, a few well timed Intimidation attempts got him to start spilling as many secrets as he could.

He confessed to all the experiments that Amra had accused him of and noted. He also noted that he and Professor Skye were originally contacted about the idea of people having psionic abilities by someone they knew only as Ace. He noted that, as far as he knew, they had never spoken to Ace directly. They met with a different person each time but they all used the same passphrase. I couldn’t come up with one off the top of my head during the session but afterwards, I told them it was “The Third Eye sees all.” He also informed them that there was correspondence in his desk in his office at the School of Continued Progress.

The party returned to the campus where Khorr and Jedah, now with a level in rogue, tried to sneak into his office. Thanks to a combination of lucky and unlucky rolls, Jedah was able to make it in undetected but Khorr snuck through the window just as another worker was turning a corner. He was quickly escorted out by a security official and talking his ear off until he was escorted to the edge of campus. Jedah was able to follow the instructions Calvyn had given them and get the papers from a secret compartment in one of his drawers before sneaking out still unnoticed.

As the party regrouped on the campus grounds, both the Robin they had brought with them and another one they had seen on campus both started cowering as if they sensed something dangerous coming. Then, the party looked up and saw a giant ship in the sky. From that ship, four masked figured descended wearing similar masked to the masked man that attacked Erezel in the first session. Two of them picked up the Robins and attempted to carry them off. Amra decided to tie down Calvyn which ended up taking him two rounds while the rest of the party tried to deal with the attackers.

This ended up being the hardest fight the party had experienced up to this point with multiple party members nearly dying and Ulrich being floored by the lead attacker. He had to make multiple Death Saves succeeding on his first and failing his second.

By that point, the lead attacker already on the brink of death himself, decided he was going to take out one of the party members with him. He ran across the fountain and with the last of his strength, brought down his golden scythe in Ulrich’s chest killing him. Seeing this coming, Ulrich seized upon the last of his strength and magical power to cast hellish rebuke igniting himself and killing the masked man along with him.

The combat continued for a few more rounds with the party just finishing off the rest of the attackers. When the assault around them had ended, Khorr rushed to Ulrich’s corpse trying every method he could think of including using all the leeches he had bought back in To’anata. Amra joined in trying to use his divine gifts granted by Favel to heal him but by that point, Ulrich was too far gone. And that’s where our session ended.

A Death in the Family

Well, that was certainly a session.

Note to self: It’s not the mechanical dragon that kills players. It’s the combat in the following session that does it. In the corresponding session when I last ran this campaign, we lost Ton-Lifter to another enemy leader so I guess this session is just cursed.

I always find it difficult to kill a player character but in both of these situations, it felt like the proper thing for the enemies to do at that time and I apologized to both of the players after it happened. I think both of them understood that it’s a danger of being an adventurer in D&D. I also outlined the possibilities for their next characters (Basically, the same setup as character creation but leveled up to match the party) and for their dead characters as well should the party choose to pursue that path.

For Hao, I laid out who might be in and around Meridan. That was mostly pointing out that the Crane Monastery where fire monks train is located in the Valley of the Mist to the south so if he wanted to play a monk, especially an elemental one, that would be his likely origin. The Valley is also a crossover point with the Feywild and may even have been where Ulrich first made contact with the Spring Court so that was also a possibility.

If instead, the party decided to try to resurrect Ulrich, they would need to find the rare mage capable of doing that. High level magic on Arretin is fairly rare and most mages who can do it are dedicated to different gods or royal houses so their powers may already be on retainer to someone else. It will be very expensive and that might not be payable in gold. Even then, Ulrich is probably going to be changed by his time on the other side since he has multiple factions all vying for his soul but that’s a story for a different time. There are other methods available that they’ d be able to find if they look in the right places but I’ll leave that until after they’ve decided what to do.

So, yeah. I think death in my D&D games shouldn’t come too easy but also not something that should never come at all. The exact line is probably up to the group and the campaign so as always, make sure this is something you’re all on the same page about before the campaign begins.

That’s it for this week. We’ll be back next week on September 27, 2024. Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[There's Something About Robin | Drink Talk Roll #65 (Arretin Campaign #19)]]>Fri, 06 Sep 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/theres-something-about-robin-drink-talk-roll-65-arretin-campaign-19

This is the nineteenth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! The party hatches a plan to confront The Headmaster of the School of Continued Progrress, and things go well. Well enough at least until Amra loses his Harbinger powers.... No more details, watch for the rest! Consider catching us live to get the full, unedited DTR experience! The DM may change, the players may change, but we'll always be rolling!

DM:
J.D.

Players:
Manuel (Amra The Harbinger)
Hao (Ulrich The Warlock)
Pleiades (Khorr The Rogue)
Warren (Jedah The Gunslinger)

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 8/30 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #19: There’s Something About Robin]]>Thu, 05 Sep 2024 18:21:45 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-19-theres-something-about-robin

Session Recap

After failing to get a meeting with Calvyn Silvergard, the Dean of the School of Continued Progress last session, the party started this session plotting how to get closer to him. Jedah and Amra decided to go find lodgings for them while Ulrich and Khorr waited for Dean Silvergard to leave his office.

They waited in the campus plaza until the end of the workday when they noticed a gnome man with a big mustache and two automaton guards leaving the administrative building. They followed him through the streets of Meridan for a few minutes until he arrived at the Hotel Camellia. After he remained in their for a few minutes, Khorr and Ulrich decided Khorr should go alert the others though he did also stop at a cheese monger on the way there to pick up some wheels for the rest of the party.

Ulrich stayed behind to scout and found Dean Silvergard dining in the hotel’s restaurant sitting alone in a corner flanked by his two automata. When the rest of the party arrived at the hotel, he let them know of the situation. Amra decided the best way to make contact with him would be to go in. He tried to book a table for four but the maître d told him that they were a reservation only place…but for a small bribe, he was willing to make an exception. Lucky for him, Talliyah and (a?) Robin happened to be in the area at the time and so, he ditched Khorr and Ulrich for them. (Sorry, guys.)

Inside the restaurant, Amra quickly made contact with Calvyn using the cheese as an in. He also tried to continue the deception from the last session that Jedah is actually the sausage king Abe Froman but to his detriment, Calvyn actually knows the real Abe so the party quickly moved on to making Jedah one of Abe’s illegitimate sons with the same name. Eventually, all of them barring Robin who hadn’t been officially invited over, sat around the table enjoying wine until they were good and drunk. At that time, Calvyn decided he should head home for the night but Jedah and Amra convinced him that they should accompany him for his safety so they all left the restaurant with Ulrich and Khorr following behind.

As they got closer to his house, all the drinking caught up to Jedah who vomited over the steps of Calvyn’s house. They used this as an excuse to get inside Calvyn’s house. Amra tried to leave the door unlocked for Khorr and Ulrich but he misjudged his on strength in his drunkenness. Inside the house, Jedah was escorted to the bathroom with one of Slivergard’s automata and the others moved into the den to wait for him to freshen up. After a few minutes, Amra “accidentally” stuck the automaton in the den. Jedah did the same to the one accompanying him not long after.

This began a tough interrogation of Calvyn Silvergard. Calvyn was still in disbelief at what had happened when Amra grabbed him from behind. Amra tried slipping the ring with the other SCP researcher’s soul trapped inside it onto his finger and knocking him out but Calvyn recovered much more quickly than expected. Calvyn tried to deescalate the situation offering to sweep everything under the rug if they just left him uninjured. Amra kept up the threats and so Calvyn shouted at Robin, “Execute Dragon Protocol!” Amra was too slow to cover Calvyn’s mouth before he spoke the words. Robin immediately dropped to the floor and started convulsing. At the same time, a rumbling started beneath the build and soon, a giant mechanical dragon emerged from the basement breaking most of the house in the process.

Before combat started, Amra furthered his threats against Calvyn. He said he would slice Calvyn’s throat if he didn’t stand down but a shouting match with Khorr led to him only cutting off his hand*. This causes Calvyn to pass out from shock and means there’s nothing else to do but run or fight. Amra considers running but the rest of the party is resolved to destroy this thing.

The mechanical dragon burns through the wooden walls of the house creating a much more open battlefield as the party moves around trying to find a good position from which everyone can attack him. Amra tries to call upon his divine features granted to him by Favel but finds that his actions seem to have displeased his deity causing his action to fail. He continues to fight channeling his rage at Favel into his attacks.

Khorr soon figures out that the dragon does its best to avoid hitting Robin with its attacks and soon grabs her to keep himself safe. Ulrich and Jedah also keep up with the long-ranged assault with their magic and guns respectively but it’s ultimately Amra who slew the dragon and it let out one last flame breath letting the rain pour over the head of the broken harbinger. And so ended the session.

*Manuel will say Amra only meant to cut off a finger but drunkenly missed. Believe him if you want but none of us do.

Talking is a Free Action

I’ve often talked about communicating with your fellow players when you feel there is a problem whether that’s as a player or as a game master. Maybe you don’t like the way another player or their character is behaving or maybe you think some feature of yours is underpowered and would like a buff. The best way to reach a point where everyone is satisfied is to talk with the people who can best remedy this problem. Usually, that’s the game master and any directly involved players. Open communication will hopefully help you find what’s best for the group even if that sometimes means that your views of the game don’t align and someone has to leave.

These changes could be things that happen immediately like a buff to a class feature or weapon or a sudden change in a character’s behavior that is never commented on and maybe treated as the way they always acted. Or it could be a change that plays out in game, like a smith you’ve helped out before offering to craft a new weapon for you that gives you some bonus or new ability or the character going character development through outside stimuli or some soul search telling them they should change. There won’t be one right way that applies to every problem for every group so when you talk about a problem, make sure to talk about how it gets fixed as well.

Drink Talk Roll has been no stranger to that in this campaign or the ones that came before it and the most recent example is Amra’s behavior. It started with going along with Jedah’s despicable idea to maybe kill Mr. and Mrs. Jaffe (which thankfully, they never followed through with) just because they became a little too attached to Neil and Clover. Then, if it wasn’t his minor misbehaviors in Shunil, it was trying to play both sides in Jaran with absolutely no plan. Then, it was desecrating the body of the dark herald in front of an audience. And finally, it was taking a guy hostage, threatening to slicing his throat and then, “settling” for cutting off his hand which only caused more trouble for himself and the party. We’ve spoken outside of the game about this and have a plan for how it’s going to play out. I think we’ve seen the last of it and I hope you’ll stick around to see it.

Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

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