Early Sunday D&D: Thergale #001

08/06/2023

One moment you're hosting the biggest, best birthday gala yet, talking with the mayor, and thinking that all the sacrifices have quite possibly proven their worth. Suddenly, the night sky disappears, swallowed by the light of a single star, then oblivion. When next you gather your senses you are adrift in a sea of black, slowly falling toward an unrecognizable world, faster and faster, and finally you are deposited in a snow bank dressed in your celebratory finery and freezing your ass off.

Things did not start well.


Detritus from my home was scattered about, along with a few unfortunate guests whose fall had not reached nearly so auspicious an end as had mine. I retrieved my blade from the former mayor and turned to discover that solitude was not to be a worry. An elf unknown to me, save the briefest of greetings at the gala, climbed from a deep drift of snow and drew steel as I approached. Violent. I noted, more decidedly, that he was holding the purse of one Purcival von Chastine. Roguish. A crass act to perform at my gala, but a smart mark against a boorish noble. Brash. Quick to draw steel and offer violence to the only other living person from here to the horizon in every direction.


I made my apologies regarding my brandished and befouled blade, exchanged proper introductions, and offered up my furniture in sacrifice to off-putting frostbite. Of course, I extracted my traveling coat and boots from the wardrobe before committing the wardrobe to kindling. Whereupon, establishing a campfire, my new companion, Gus, and I set to deciding a course of action.


Unexpected guests arrived and introduced themselves with a blade to Gus's throat. But having no other choice we joined up with this rogues galley of traveller's and headed off to the ominously named, Black Monastery. It's like I'm in a rather volatile carnival, what with a gnome and a giant, elves and ooze being my traveling companions. It's as if I'm balls deep back in the fairy realm.


I'll list my companions, lest I forget this most wondrous troop.

  • Gus the wood elf pickpocket.
  • Dug the ranger of the north.
  • Darkeyes, she who has but a single dark eye and weirdly... Winston, her rabbit hat.
  • Brock, the holy gnome.
  • Adrandd, the not-quite-a-giant.
  • And lastly, Punt, the mind talking ooze in a box

Little was said and assuredly much was thought by these folk. Ah, but such a strange world breeds strange traveling companions. At least we were able to sleep out of the weather in a most wonderous folding fortress. The close of this journey found us looking down into the valley of this Black Monastery and noting it was under assault.

Following the lead of my traveling companions, I put my particular set of skills to the task of eliminating the threat to the Monastery. Victory was ours and entry to the place our reward. I can observe that these companions of mine are as dangerously efficient as they are eclectic. A worrisome note that I find myself making more often than not when describing cohorts. Perhaps this is a reflection upon my life choices.


Monks and bandits. Paintings and murals of fallen gods. Sacred circles and beholders. I am still unclear as to the politics of this situation, but this place unsettles me and I look forward to departure. There is a giant, isn't it always a giant, that needs be dealt with and so we are off again.


Thergale the Verdant,

excerpt from the Arcanum Majoris Obscura 


Location: Schuler Books, Grand Rapids, MI

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