(I had forgotten what a pain doing html formatting over mobile was so expect slowness from me)

had a Skitter dnd session yesterday, got an Aurix session tonight (though storms and cold might throw a wrench in that)

Skitter sessions are always fun because her outlook is very "dont be upsetti have some spaghetti" and the Storm Crow leader trusts her a surprising amount

first half was mostly Serious Plot Advancement Errands where we tried to recruit magical researchers for polymorph studies

which will hopefully culminate in using the Staff of True Polymorph to give the party a bunch of cool monster abilities like skitter's new "I can actually see in daylight" eyes

we got to meet our human paladin's backup character (the paladin temporarily left to bail his family out of peril after a minor apocalypse rocked the worlds shit) and HE RULES

a kenku rogue (assassin?) who looks like a hawk named Snuffles

skitter immediately adores him because SNEAK FRIEND WITH CUTE NAME WHO LIKES KNIVES

the rng was a dick to poor snuffles, though. he has the same +11 on stealth skitts has, but he never got higher than a 16

on the bright side: this meant skitter got to tail him undetected after he got hired by the gang. she snooped a bit to see who else he was answering to

she tried to impress him a bit by sending Worlds Best Familiar Good Boy Teacup to deliver an invisibility to him without giving her position away

and because the rng was a dick to snuffles, even with advantage on his stealth, he got found by a Mysterious Armored Old Man

who announced that he could see through invisibility (within earshot of Skitter, who Duly Noted this fact)

after mystery man started to leave, skitter popped up all "hey dare you to prove your chops by planting a thing in his pockets," but snuffles wasnt having that nonsense from this weird small lizard

so she tries to impress him again by goin "alright CHECK THIS SHIT OUT" and she creeps on mystery man and mage hands a paper into his pocket undetected

it later turns out that mystery man is the guy who taught our leader everything he knows, and he's like level A Billion

it's such a small insignificant victory, but I'm still just. Really Pleased that the rolls worked out for her like that

the triumphs she gets are rarely in terms of flashy or brute forcey stuff (though rogue dps ain't nothing to sneeze at), but from quick fingers and aptitude for cheekiness

enemy hurling a magic grenade at them? she catches it, keeps it, no damage done

untouchable ancient divination archwizard has stolen your cool orb? yoink it right out of his hand while he does an edgy monologue and fart off outta there

I adore that the dm is willing to give me the room to try that shit instead of just pure Combat Or Bust because this character has become so satisfying to play

her deity is God of "things to weak to take notice of find unexpected loopholes and tricks to do the impossible" and every time she can try to live that virtue, she Thrives

anyway, Party Leader did a little sparring against Mysterious Armored Mentor Man, and even he only won one round out of three

entire rest of the party (lore wizard, my arcane trickster, some kinda fighter that human-paladin-guy is controlling while his character is gone, plus the npc cleric and bard) all try a round of "all of us against one of you, first to half health loses"

and hooooo boy HES A TOUGH COOKIE

dude is like a max level eldritch knight or something? 23 AC, access to Shield. the bard/wizard didnt figure it out until after the fight, but he has a ring that gives him Evasion against Fireball in particular too, so he shrugged off all our spellcaster nukes without taking any damage

even so, it was still a really fun fight! it's a shame that human-pally-player didnt bring his kenku so he could flex what Snuffles can do too, but it was still really nice to have a relatively straightforward fight where we all just focused on working as a unit and buffing/debuffing/statusing to set each other up to do something cool

everyone just like cranked maximum buffs onto Skitter, so she was a tiny flying nuke with like... inspo, bless, mirror image, haste, shadow blade all beefing her at once

we got real close to knocking him to half health, and she might have somehow pulled it off if she had the ability to make a Wis saving throw to save her life rofl

we ended the session on a huge plot cliffhanger, so it'll be exciting to see what comes next

dungey dragons........... fun

I'm also super looking forward to the Aurix campaign because we've had some really satisfying between-session rp and we got some very exciting magic items to play with

lmao by all means mute away because I wanna gush about THIS character too rofl

(aurix is a lizardfolk hexblade with a tiny dip into swashbuckler rogue, big emphasis on melee and doing eight thousand flavors of chip damage per hit rofl)

another level 8 party where I'm the most recent person to join, much like Skitter group, so there's still a lot of plot and history and NPCs that I'm just "??????" about rofl

but last session consisted of us fighting an Ancient White Dragon because we need dragon scales to make spacesuits or something

(a giant and his pet behir had gotten there first, so they ate the breath weapon damage for us, which is how we stood half a chance against an ancient dragon )

aurix only landed one hit in that fight, but that one hit dealt like 70 damage without even being a crit and HOO BOY being a nuke is just very satisfying I can see why paladins love smites so much

speaking of: the paladin dealt the killing blow with a crit, same as the last time the party fought a dragon apparently (I hadn't joined yet)

only this time the bard had polymorphed her into a giant ape, so she did it by yeeting a rock into its torso full-on donkey Kong style

there was apparently a ton of loot to be had, but it was all encased in ice. aurix turned on the charm and went all "I am your dragon now, consider yourselves adopted" at the kobolds living in the lair, and set them to digging the treasure out for them

so on the off chance we can actually make our way back to Dragonspire, we're in for some hefty loot

but the DM handed us a pile of 20 magic items that he said we managed to dig out on our own with firebolt/green flame blade

and we kinda pieced together what some of them are over the like two weeks of between-session downtime and rp

and YALL AURIX GOT SPOILED ROTTEN

she came away from it with a ring of spell storing (an extra spell slot or two, basically, which is HEAVEN for someone who only gets two slots to begin with), a manual of leadership and influence (+2 to charisma AND max cha, meaning she could eventually buff herself to 22 instead of just 20), and a broom (might be a broom of flying?)

not only that, but the dm gave me HEXBLADE TREATS in the form of rp

her sword, Lucky Strike, had some Demands. out of the blue in the middle of some rp where she was explaining how the blade reacts to blood, the dm slides me a PM with it giving a command to feed

she tries to be kinda Subtle and Hey No Evil Swords Here about it and inches toward the fallen dragon, then plunges Lucky into its heart

the sword starts glowing blue from within the wound, the half-orc samurai has his sword at her neck in an instant all "hey quick question what the fuck"

she refuses to let Lucky Strike go and there's a tense dramatic standoff, samurai gets some answers to something he's been looking for

Lucky Strike has been transformed completely by the dragon blood, and now the blade is completely pristine and unmarked, and glows an icy blue

samurai wets his own blade with his blood, touches it to Lucky, and Lucky has a reaction

pulling at the sword somehow like it's trying to cling to it, ordering Aurix to feed again

samurai says that their fates are intertwined and they're two sides of the same kind

aurix is just like. "hm. this is normal. this is very fine."

hauls him away from the party for a little chat. turns out that the blade samurai wields is his father's, and dude is missing, presumed dead, and samurai is looking for what happened to him

he was a soldier who was a master with a blade, taught samurai everything he knows, and apparently his fellow soldiers had a nickname for him: "Lucky."

so he pledges himself to aurix, believing fate brought him to her for a reason and he needs to stick with her to find his answers

now, aurix knows nothing about her patron, beyond "it wants blood" and "it will destroy me and everyone I love if I fail to serve"

and shes been helping samurai out with his agenda so far, and the two have hit it off pretty well. they gel on a lot of things, he's just as reckless about risk-taking as her. she likes the cut of this dude's jib

and most of all: she doesn't know if Lucky reacted like that to his sword because samurai's blood was coating the blade, or if it was reacting to the sword itself

so she sees something to gain here, too. the two form a blood pact to follow and protect each other and stroll back to the party as if nothing fishy ever happened at all

and I am SO DELIGHTED by this turn of events

I didnt see the DM weaving backstories together coming at all and I am absolutely hype to see where it all eventually leads

and also my ass is forever gay for found family and We're Partners tropes so I am absolutely living that my character is finding a place in the group like this

i love skitter and i support her in everything she does.

BLESS

I know nothing about aurix but i support her also

this chaotic scaly ball of glitter and frills loves you too nikki

as does aurix, probably

G A SP i'm so blessed

shes still my newest character so I havent got all the kinks ironed out just yet but like... God I love playing lizardfolk

every time I roll a kobold their stats are a trash fire but every time I roll a lizardfolk I roll FANTASTIC rofl

lizardfolk are ur destiny snap

my brand

ironically, aurix also ended up having a lot of stormy themes

JUST

collect all the stormy lizards

the stormiest of lizards

her whole-ass name is draconic for "a glitter of gold in the eye of a storm," because I wanted something that suggests "big reward but bigger risk" and evokes that whole "takes big gambles" part of her

and Lucky Strike itself was originally designed to evoke a mix of lightning strikes and striking a gold vein

so somehow now my entire fate is basically just "thunder lizard with massive secret soft spot for family who is in cahoots with something extremely malevolent and bloodthirsty"

im a gay nerd who loves Dinosaur People

greetings fellow humans

YELLS SNAP I LOVE HER SHE'S PERFECT

BOY I SURE ENJOY ACTIVITIES SUCH AS: (squints at smudged writing on hand) having feelings

listen aurix emotions are good for u

lmao you absolutely would not realize that lizardfolk have very dulled emotions and struggle with empathy by looking at her

she absolutely mothers the heck out of all these Poor Squishy Vulnerable Softskins shes travelling with

she is very much the image of "I'm just a sweet silly lizard housewife here to help you darlings out"

deception expertise means you can still be empathetic and kind if it's a conscious effort instead of natural instinct

"hey snap why do you have so many characters whose core themes are about how you can still choose to try to be compassionate even if you're Numbed by a shit brain or absolutely wrecked by trauma"
"shUT"

anyway, stuff to get done before session time:
• sketch a token for arakosh (and verify my rendition is accurate before I ink and stuff)
• fuckin put some tags in your tag plurk lol
• dogsitting stuff
• stop by an atm for the love of God carry cash for once you need change for parking meters
• chip away at Google doc

at long last, like an hour before session, i am Prepared To Tag

eska > quentin

eska > legion

eska > drifter

okay gotta hunker down for tabletops time

I've still got time but we levelled up so I gotta update items and skills and pick spells

aurix session was REALLY GOOD

turns out aurix rolled really lucky and every magic item on her wishlist ended up being something the DM put in the hoard

Other party members got some of them because like... I ain't gonna hoard all the fun toys to myself, but mmmm she got some UNBELIEVABLY DOPE shit

Her spell DC is now 18 and I cannot WAIT to try it out

we handed in the bounty on that ancient white dragon and got so much gold we had to buy a portable hole to fit it

the sorc-ranger and the paladin are girlfriends now and good for them honestly

Ronin (samurai buddy) had Aurix point him to where he could buy some thieves' tools, and instead of purchasing them with gold, he ended up offering to assassinate a dude for Mysterious Shady Folks in exchange for a set

so we're set to exterminate a high priest of Savras (god of fate, who Ronin is a big follower of) who's been working for whoever in the temple is getting up to some shady shit and giving Mysterious Criminals unwelcome competition

(the party has known since before I arrived that something was fucky in the temple of savras, but I don't really know the details of it)

We're debating bringing the bard in on it because he seems like he'd be morally amenable to it, but the rest of the party is very... Lawful Good

and "kill a man in cold blood to avoid paying 50 gold" is probably not something that would gel with them

dungy dragons................. fun

good morning i am critically afflicted with Sleepy Bitch Disease

i don't have access to a coffeemaker right now so i'm just a big groggy lump

Sleepy Bitch Disease is something I can empathise with.

I can't believe that donkey kong is the trans ally of the year

Not just DK. Check out the list of people who have popped into the stream.

donkey kong says trans rights

I know my dude I'M LIVING

his coconut gun

#thanksgraham

IT'S EMOTIONAL AND IM EMOTIONAL AND ITS GOOD

will fire on terfs

PFFFFFFFFAHAHHAHAHA SNAPS

put that on stream, I know some people will love that

HE DONE IT he beat the game