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.