Who wants to play D&D online again?

Hey folks,

Had an aunt pass away on the weekend that may/will require a trip out to the coast. Not sure when it'll be, what the arrangements are etc. So if I don't show on the 13th it's probably because I'm travelling and forgot to update here.

Season 2 Episode 11: Pretty Much Disney's Beauty & The Beast (November 13, 2021)
Game Master: sarapen
Players: Bomo Frugglemop-Crabbe (Nudeviking ), "Dame" Goha (patbat ), Peak Dartbox (Celebith ), and Cosgrove Ashmore (Baron von Costume ) tonight played by Everyone Else!
Location: Various Places in Meratt County

The sound of combat finally died down and the door to the chamber was opened. Inside the party saw the writhing mass of centipedes swarming atop the corpses of Goha's summoned frogs.

"My beautiful frog bois!" she moaned in anguish at the sight of the slaughtered amphibians.

The centipede swarm then skittered towards them so Bomo slammed the door so they could regroup. After some deliberation they decided that they would open the door so that Cosgrove could huck a bomb at the swarming mass as it was doubtful that conventional weapons would have much of an effect on them. The bomb was hurled and exploded in flames, torching a sizable portion of the swarm but they skittered forwards and burst through the door before the party was able to once again close it. Bomo attempted to do karate on the bugs since she'd seen a master from the East once catch flies between his thumb and forefinger in the marketplace in Oparra and thought such techniques might come in handy. They did not. Peak Dartbox had marginally better luck just stomping on bugs and Goha blasted them with an ice beam but Cosgrove was the Metallica Load-esque "Hero of the Day," hucking bombs left and right until the centipedes were all slaughtered.



With the immediate threat taken care of the party made their way into the room and begin poking about searching for treasure. They came upon a saddle bag, attached to the rotten, half-eaten corpse of a horse, containing way too many silver coins and a more reasonable number of gold coins that were placed in Peak Dartbox's Fanny Pack of Holding. Also discovered among a pile of greasy bones was a Ring of Protection +2 that Bomo slipped onto her finger as she was the only party member that routinely engaged in fisticuffs.

With the room scoured of anything useful the party continued searching the ruinous castle, exiting the centipede room into a small corridor with two doors on the westernmost wall. The party listened at each door and while the door to the south sounded relatively quiet the northern door of the two had a peculiarly absence of sound that unnerved Bomo and so the party elected to travel through the southern door.

They came out into a large foyer that was dusty and contained some mildewy furniture but nothing else of note. Two the north were a pair of elegant oaken doors that had been chained and locked shut. There was also a less foreboding door on the easternmost wall that every assumed to be far less likely to result in death and so the party crossed the foyer and listened at the door. They could hear the sound of people talking but it was too muffled for anyone to determine what was being said or ever what language the individuals behind the door were speaking.

At that moment Cosgrove took a medallion from his coat pocket and mentioned that the Baronet of New Town had given it to him the night before. None in the party wanted to pry into what Cosgrove had gotten up to in the late night hours with the Baronet of New Town and so they all held their tongues. Cosgrove said that if the people behind the door were loyal to the Baron Telus the Baronet's crest might carry some weight and get them an audience with the Baron.

"It might," Goha said, "but if they heard you hucking bombs ten minutes ago we're probably fucked."

"Or if they have a window in that room and saw our arson," Bomo added.

The party decided to risk it anyway and so Cosgrove opened the door and entered. A quartet of shirtless Jason Momoas were seated around a table playing cards but upon seeing the outsiders quickly stood and demanded to know who the party was. Cosgrove explained that he was here on behalf of the Baronet of New Town and wanted to speak with the Baron about the recent banditry. The Jason Momoas said they would need to talk it over and asked the party to excuse them while they talked it over. They closed the door and talked among themselves for a few moments before reopening the door and telling Cosgrove that the Baron was indisposed but he could speak with their direct surpervisor, The Huntsman. One of the Jason Momoas offered to take Cosgrove to the Huntsman and then headed up a narrow hallway with Cosgrove.



"This seems like they're going to try and get us in a pincer attack," Bomo whispered to Peak and Goha, "You to go in the middle, I'll bring up the rear and punch the shit out of these three Jason Momoas if things go sideways."

But things didn't go sideways and true to their word the Jason Momoas brought the party to their supervisor, The Huntsman. Cosgrove and Peak parlayed with the Huntsman about the recent banditry and offered to hire the men and women who had turned to banditry to do honest security work back in Staychys. The Huntsman told them that that wouldn't be possible since it would mean leaving the Baron all alone and they were still loyal to him in spite of his curse.

The party then asked about the nature of the curse and the Huntsman explained that the Baron had angered a witch due to his rudeness and in turn that watch cursed him by turning him into a beast. Bomo asked if there was a rose involved and whether or not the curse could be broken via the power of love.

"No and no," said the Huntsman, "The Baron now calls him the Prince of Spiders and he LOVES eating people. All our banditry? That's just so we can get folks for the Baron to eat to satiate his hunger for flesh so he doesn't rampage."

"Why don't you guys just stop feeding him then?" asked Peak.

"Well, if we stop feeding him he'll probably just bust out of that room over there and start wrecking shop on everyone in Merrat County. I mean he is a sorcerer and could easily get out of that room if he so desired. I'm pretty sure he just allows himself to be kept in that room because we're feeding him."

"Alright. We'll go try and find a solution to this curse and cure the Baron but you got to promise us to stop kidnapping people to feed to the cannibal spider sorcerer the Baron's become," Peak said.

"Look," the Huntsman said, "I can't guarantee that we won't feed him anymore people but we will maybe try and cut back a little on it provided you cats can work out a solution before the Baron gets hungry again."

That was enough for the party who then left the estate and made their way back to the carriage. As they walked to their carriage they asked Goha if she knew anything about curses.

"Not really," she said, "That's really more of a witch's bag than a wizard's. You know sometimes I think it probably would have been better if I'd taken up witchcraft rather than wizardry but it seemed really on the nose so I decided against it back when I was picking my major at Oppara Community College."

"We're going to need a library then," Peak said, "and I think in this area our best bet is probably Bartleby's personal library."

Luckily for the party, Cosgrove had ingratiated himself towards Bartleby at the Taniger Jubilee and earned himself a standing invitation to use Bartleby's library and so they set off towards the Palace of Birdsong. The trip was largely uneventful save for one evening while making camp the party was attacked by an assassin vine that the party made short work of with spells and ranged weapons.

They also decided to make a pitstop at Staychys, as they would be passing by it en route to the Birdsong Palace and it had been a number of days since they were there. They arrived in town shortly before an troupe of workmen and supplies from Dame Crabbe also arrived in town and the party set them to work on a number of civic repairs before heading to the tavern to talk Piscum. When they entered they found Ol' Scruddy there tying one on. He told them that he'd stuffed and mounted the Manticore head but it had taken a bit longer than expected because he was also serving as the parole officer for the town drunk.

"How's that going?" Peak asked him.

"Well she does her work and hasn't made any trouble since so I guess that's about as good as it could go," Scruddy replied, "So about that manticore head, I've got it up at the house. Do you want me to hang it there or would you rather it be displayed down here for the townsfolk to enjoy?"

After some discussion the party told Scruddy to hang it in the tavern. He nodded and said he'd take care of it in the morning and then returned to drinking. The party left him to it and walked over to the counter to chat with Piscum. She informed them that the repairs to the pump house had been made and the construction work on the mill had also been completed. As there were no other pressing matters the party returned to their manorhouse to pass the night in their own beds for the first time in a long time. They also deposited the bust of Dame Crabbe they had been gifted though before leaving for the Palace of Birdsong the next morning Bomo made sure to remove the magical necklace from the bust and put it in her coat pocket.

The trip to the Birdsong Palace was extremely uneventful as that particular byway was one of the few roads in the county that was well maintained and patrolled to keep it free of monsters and bandits and so the party made good time and arrived there shortly before lunch. They were met by Purple Finch who informed them that Bartleby was unfortunately busy and would thus be unable to host them but Cosgrove and his assistant Goha were more than welcome to use the library and so the two of them were led off to search the stacks for some clue as to how to remove the curse that had turned Baron Telus into a cannibal spider-monsterman. Peak and Bomo were left to their own devices. Some eight hours later Cosgrove and Goha returned with news of how to undo curses. Unfortunately it involved a spell that was far beyond the ken of anyone in the party so if they were going to undo the Baron's curse they were going to have to find the witch that put the curse upon him and deal with her.

sarapen did you get a chance to look up what that necklace on that Dame Crabbe bust actually did?

Okay, so anyone up for a mid-December game? Which is better, the 11th or the 18th?

Nudeviking Baron von Costume Celebith patbat

Either of those is fine for me.

I have symphony tickets on the 11th, would likely make the back half of the game only.

Yeah has been bad luck of late, hopefully better luck in the new year

We're doing this Thursday evening right? Just want to double check before I put in for a personal day.

Yes, Thursday 9 pm Eastern time, Friday morning your time.

Is this:

Drive Legislation (Charm, Genius, or Sagacity)

You take a prominent role in drafting or promoting legislation or another form of governmental policy.

Associated Skill: Perform (Charm), Linguistics (Genius), or Sense Motive (Sagacity).


Actually feasible given we're in our nemesis' lands? I'm basically wondering if Cosgrove can try to start a campaign to get 'government' funding assistance for us building a distillery or better bar under the guise of a drunk peasant is a docile one?

Cool thanks. I was unclear if that DC applied to all three skills since it just shows up after Fortitude. I'll make a roll during my lunch break and post the outcome here.

Ok, I think I'll do a gather info. Since big boy gave me access to his library iirc I'd like to send my agents to look for spells if that works.

Also since I have 4 Genius can I run two operations?

If so I'd like to send my other two off to do "Ask Around" basically looking for cheaper sources on some of the materials we'll need to fix up the village?


Let me know if that works

While we're still at the manor, maybe we can plant some evidence that Chad is conspiring against Bartleby and then have my agents start a whisper campaign, as some sort of Sabotage operation. Not sure what evidence would be though - maybe we can filch something from the library and plant it in his room, or the stables or something? Forge a letter from, uh, the douchebag general asking Chad to sell out his uncle?

Yeah - he seems detestable enough that we could probably get Bartleby to split with him, and definitely seems like the kind of guy who would sell out his family for control of the county.  He's from a better branch and deserves it! 

Maybe we get something going where the other nobles talk about how something like one of their 'brothers' turning into a giant, ravening, raveonous spider wouldn't have happened before Chad got there, and maybe he's causing Bartleby to focus on things like a furry fetish instead of, you know, running the show. 

"You ever notice how our bridges collapsed, Jamdis has fallen and poor Maid Crabbe was haunted all after Chad showed up?  The old Bartleby wouldn't have stood for that"

Then we just get some rumors  going that they each want to off the other.