@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

Here we are again, doing what we do in the face of raw mediocrity. This round of posting, if anything thematic can be drawn from it, is one of pointing characters in directions. Hints as to what may come have been dropped and opportunities for character growth are presenting themselves, depending on how our merry band of adventurers (read: gaggle of misfits) choose to aim our intentions. More hints and opportunities will be revealed depending on how these are followed up on.

Per usual, message me in our Discord with questions, die rolls, or if you think I missed something. Huzzah, and good luck. The snowball has been pushed off the top of the mountain and it's just now starting to get a little bigger.

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

Congratulations on surviving the first week! Life does not completely suck after all, and there is a bit or hope shining in the distance. That said, if you wish to expand upon the activities of your characters during the time skip, that sounds like a fine idea. If you do not, figuring that its something to keep to one's chest, that's fine, too. Regardless, please make sure that your posts end at the new present time, detailed in the last paragraph of the update and described under the header.

Get with me in Discord to work out the particulars of the time skip from your character's point of view. And as always, send me a DM for questions, concerns, working out die rolls, figuring costs, etc. Thanks a heap!

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

Apologies all, for the shorter summary and update this week. The holiday has me busier than usual, and these pumpkins won't carve themselves besides. Anyway, concerning the big sparring match, please do post as an aside, like it was an event that occurred prior to or concurrently with looking around or exploring the rumormill. And if we have a tiiiiny amount of a temporal paradox in the meantime, we'll deal. This world is a place of moderate to high magic. It'll get sorted.

Per usual, DM me in our Discord for rolls, questions, if I forgot something, etc. Especially that last part, I have a nagging feeling I missed something important. Ah, well. It will come to me or it won't, or one of you will let me know. Thanks in advance.

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

Let's the obvious out of the way. You all got hit by a Wild Magic surge. No, there isn't a save to make for this. You got what you got, and it may or may not be a little clue-ish. Or symptomatic of something. Or... Well, I'll let you all try to figure that out. To make things official:

Kathryn - Grew one inch. Seriously, that's it.
Victoria - Grew three inches. Congratulations, she's even more svelte now, and STILL the shortest member of the party.
Baronfjord - In a stunning example of "who the fuck cares?", our Blue Dragonborn JUST TURNED BLUE. Not kidding. Maybe it's a shade more vibrant, or however you want to flavor this, but there you are. You're blue. I hope you can live with yourself.
Kosara - What was supposed to be a beard full of feathers, I used DM fiat to change it to flowers growing from your already present head of hair. They do not replace Kosara's hair, just grow among it. Be careful brushing.

That done, you all have stumbled into a distillery of some kind with barrels stored here. There are also two dead people that you can see at basic inspection. Sooo... Please be in contact with me over our Discord for questions, die rolls, or if you think I missed something. Best of luck with the investigation! <insert evil laugh here>

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

All right, so the Illithids are super pissed and hold you all personally responsible for the injury to their cabal of Tiefling thralls. The Elder Brain's psionic might begins to press harder upon you all, stressing the resistance your helms give you almost to the limits of their protection. Those levels of exhaustion you acquired aren't helping, either. If you don't...

Wait, wait. That's my other group. You guys are the ones in the hidden distillery at the start of the horror movie. Gotcha. OKAY! This update doesn't have a lot of things to update, so it's relatively tame with juuust one or two things to mention that changed. Best of luck. Per usual, DM me in our Discord for rolls and such, and as it IS a new cycle, you may request additional rolls for the occasion. This does not mean that you may attempt the same failed roll again - this doesn't happen unless there is a profound change to the situation, which has not happened yet.

Otherwise, roll those math rocks and hope for the best.

@Sigil

Hello!

I've been a reader for at least a month now. Waaay back at the start of chapter two, you stated you were looking for another member... would that still be the case?

@Pirouette

At work presently, so apologies if I come across as terse. Yes, there is an opening for one more person. Create a CS using the rules provided and I will review. There is a further consideration, that being that we are now in an established setting with an intentionally designed, greatly reduced NPC count. Your character's presence will have to fit narratively, which may be a hill to climb. And past this I will review your posting history to get a gist of your play style.

But yeah, wouldn't mind seeing another character involved if we can make it fit.

@Sigil

Sounds fair! I'll get to work on a character proposal and we can see from there. For record, I am coming off of a few year hiatus for reasons. If that doesn't seem appealing, that's fair, but I do want to try!

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

And here we are once again, balancing upon the knife's edge of greatness and disaster, all within the mercies of our decisions and the whim of the polyhedrons. I do sometimes wish that I could divulge things, or bits of lore which shape the events unfolding, but that would cheapen the event overall. To that end, I suppose it's one spoonful at a time. So let us focus on the issues of the in-game moment:

1) There are two bodies still present in the hidden distillery.
2) Multiple barrels of really good, very old brandy are still here to be dealt with.
3) The odd grapes are available for inspection by anyone accompanying Kosara to the fields marked for clearing.
4) Two of the group actually drank the booze. We'll discuss later.

All I can say it that you're getting into the meat of it now; nibbling upon the fatty endpiece of the roast as a whole and set to delve into the bulk of it with gravy-laden gusto. Get with me in our Discord to discuss where you're going from here and what your individual character's plans are, whether you're splitting the party to cover more tasks or if you're sticking together to tackle things one at a time. Per usual, DM me for rolls, questions, and such.

And also, think about what you're going to be doing to cover the downtime between events. We're here in wine country for the whole season, and some of us are picking up new bits of education, skills, training, and experiencing new things only available in this charming, rural paradise (that probably won't end up as a precursor to an '80s slasher flick). Above all, have fun.

@Pirouette If you are still interested in joining, please get with me on character concept and if you have questions concerning the listed rules for character generation or the general RP, "session zero" stuff, and the like. I am a fan of making entrances as organic to the setting as possible. I might also suggest getting with the current players for their input. They've been at this for a while now.

@Sigil Oh! Alright! I've been studying up on my 5e character building so I have a class and idea. I'll PM you!

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

Here we are again, once more I sit writing this harrowing take of ...stuff... and here you are reading it! It's almost like it was meant to be, what with the reading and writing. Makes sense, really. But anyway, to get to the meat of it, the situation hasn't changed a whole lot since the previous cycle, and certain elements of the update hasn't been gotten into, so admittedly there is a little copy/pasting involved here. The previous update here in the OOC still bears fruit, but here's a lightly altered recap:

1) There are two bodies still present in the hidden distillery. They are mostly destroyed now.
2) Multiple barrels of really good, very old brandy are still here to be dealt with. They are quite yummy.
3) The odd grapes are available for inspection, as Kosara spilled their location in the fields marked for clearing.
4) Two of the group actually drank the booze. Both of whom have less that stellar Wisdom scores. Go figure.

I know we have been going over possible actions to take in our Discord, and I am willing to toss some math rocks and arbitrate the spiffy plans that we talked about. Naturally, if there are questions, comments, concerns, or a call for a roll, please let me know in the Avonshire Discord and I'll see what I can do about it.

Last note - to restate from the Announcements channel, due to the holiday here in the U.S., everyone has an extra day to post. I will likely still make my updates on Monday evening, per usual. Or I may give myself an extra day, too. I'll figure it out when I get there. So, have a good holiday (if you celebrate it) and thanks again for joining me on this odd little adventure through rural D&D land's own lovely tract of wine country.

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

And the update is, as we might have expected, updated. There was a bit of a delay, thanks to net outages in my area, but here we are. I just wish I didn't have to type the damn thing out on my phone, to be honest.

Moving right along - I'm sure the snowman will be lovely, and by no means will it become a tool of eldritch horrors in the near future. This aside, there is a barrier being built over the hole in the hill, please let me know if the party, or members thereof, wish to remain to oversee its construction. As the other site has not been explored yet, I have placed the same descriptive text from earlier into a hider for convenience's sake. If you choose to interact with it this cycle, it's available.

Per usual, get with me in our Discord for rolls and/ornto hammer out details.

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

And the investigation continues. As I mentioned in our fine and shiny Discord, we're going to need to get in whatever checks we can considering the situation as it is. If you feel that more needs to be done in the sense of a narrative perspective, cool deal. We will have a good spot for that with the upcoming time skip at the next update. In short, you're going to have to account or your time for an extended(ish) period, including all of the downtime stuff you're into. If you are in the middle of learning a skill, tool set, proficiency, etc., here's where you put in the interesting bits of fluff about that. I'm pretty open about what your characters are getting into, just let me know beforehand if your ideas might have an impact on the setting in a more tangible way, so that I might roll with it, or politely suggest you go another route if it clashes with anything in our upcoming reports of Current Clack.

Many Huzzahs all around, and please hit me up with a DM in for the usual stuff.

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

Going to make this rather bullet-pointy. Here goes:

- Almost three weeks have passed.
- The arrival of the tub took place a day after the incident with the distillery, as did Cecily ushering away the two barrels of brandy.
- Anyone who drank the brandy in this time, get with me before you post. Don't worry, it's narrative. Mostly.
- The effects of the Wild Magic have not gone away by themselves.
- Remember that we are all dealing with a personal narrative wall that was hit, and/or a difficulty with individual training. Details are in the Discord OOC, or ask me if you can't find it. Please run it by me first in case it might affect the setting/possible future events so we can work around it.
- Don't worry about Lizbeth's gift from Urmdrus. He made it with his share as payment for services rendered. The other party members will get their goodies in time, as he finishes, between his regular duties to the Vineyard.

Okay! I think that sums up everything for this cycle. If not, please let me know and we can figure something out. Best of luck with this little adventure in wine country.

EDIT - For the sake of expedience, remember that you may have limited control over unnamed or non-important NPCs. If you are not sure, ask me. Single use, non impactful NPCs may be created for this purpose.

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

Welcome back from whatever flavor of winter holiday floats your collective boats. We're going to, as mentioned earlier in our Discord, kind of ease back into posting coming into the New Year. To that end, you can see what's up with the IC. Feel free to continue and/or wrap up conversations between characters amongst yourselves if you want to, just make sure that you make a choice about responding to the bit at the end of the update by the end of your posts this cycle. Ignoring this is an option, if you think it's a matter for the staff. Just know that it's getting really cold outside, and the current clack is a'clacking.

Per our usual, hit me up in the Discord for questions, rolls, etc., and have the spiffiest of days.

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

Oh, we're all optimized for combat and/or social gatherings, full of good stories and quirky personalities galore, aren't we? But what if the challenge has absolutely nothing to do with any of that? And so, here we are. Granted, an uninvolved person can just as easily go back to bed and not help a widowed lady and an orphaned girl save their last harvest of the year from the punishing and unexpected cold of the season, but what would that make you? Let us add to this the fact that they recently lost their family patriarch and lived through a traumatizing experience involving megalomaniacal wererats, AND you're a guest of their estate. But no, you go ahead and get some Zs. It'll probably be okay.

Take to this challenge in any way that you wish to. Possible avenues include (but are by zero means limited to):

The proper equipment for this is still being offloaded for delivery in a storage shed elsewhere on the property. It's taking a while so the workers present are improvising. One might assist in the improvisation somehow, or conversely attempt to locate and assist the people going after the equipment. One might attempt to go to Southmoor to rally people to help; conversely there are other, smaller villages scattered throughout the area who might not have been touched as much by the illness running amok. Or, as Cecily suggested, the player characters have abilities beyond your average Larry the Laborer. Perhaps some of these can be made to suit the task somehow. Also, as she suggested, just being there to do physical work will be of good, respectable help. Whatever task you undertake, in fact, much of this will be needed per character before this is over. Even mundane support like fetching hot soup or the like would be useful.

There are bound to be complications. In fact, I've already made a list of stuff that can go down, and will improvise. Skill checks are open for grabs if applicable to the task undertaken. Get with me and we can work something out, regardless. Per usual, hit me up on Discord. I'm curious to see what you all will decide to do.

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

And we have finally made it! I have noted the successes and delays of the characters by means of their dice rolls and declared actions in the IC and/or in Discord. If you're concerned that I didn't catch something in the update, let me know so I can confirm, deny, or wag an unapproving finger at the screen and not tell anyone about it. In any case, now comes the part where the more physical aspect of this event/challenge takes place. Meaning, the characters are all subject to the effects of the environment and work they're doing, and the only way to come out unscathed is to announce that your character is pulling out or quitting. I will be making die rolls in the background for each of us. Those with a low Con score beware.

Now, there are things one can do to help out with this. But I'm leaving that up to your imaginations. It's the middle of the night and well below freezing. You're participating in manual labor. There isn't exactly a burgeoning amount of steady, overhead light to make things easier, and the available firelight is going to mess with darkvision. Good luck.

Oh, and as always, get with me in the Discord about plans of action, die rolls, rulings, etc.

@rivaan@Shoe Thief@Sigil@Arty Fox

Allow me again to apologize for the lateness of my update. The good news is that the update in question has in fact been updated, so there's that. Now, there are a couple of things, and the first one is Exhaustion. Everybody has one level. Everyone worked through the night, and after what was assumed to he a more or less full day of pursuing whatever training, exploration, etc. you're getting yourselves into. One level is mandatory. Now brace for it - I want you to roll a CON save anyway. Make it a DC of 13. This is to see if you get an additional level of Exhaustion. The conditions all of your characters have been working under were brutal. Considering DMG Rules As Written, I believe this to be a lenient, middle ground ruling.

Get with me in our Discord for all of the usual reasons. And thanks again for your patience.

For a refresher, rules on Exhaustion are below:

Level Effect
1 Disadvantage on ability checks
2 Speed halved
3 Disadvantage on Attack rolls and Saving throws
4 Hit point maximum halved
5 Speed reduced to 0
6 Death