This session picks back up after last month’s cliffhanger! I had a lot of ideas for how the session might go, but our DM and the other players always surprise me. No combat this time, just a lot of roleplaying, and I think our group has a lot of fun with that. Let’s get into what happened!

What’s SBotLL Again?

That’s the campaign I play in! You can read more about it here. The good squad is Allora, tiefling ranger, Nala, dragonborn rogue, and my character, Finnith, an elf bard. We’re 10th level right now.

Recap                                

Last session, the group got their first mission from the Moon’s Eye* leader, the human named Mehmen Baasha, who Allora befriended in the first few sessions of the campaign. The mission was to travel to Alame’a and find a cache of Moon’s Eye documents hidden away in the tunnels underneath the city. The party was also asked to, if possible, investigate Coven** activity around the main political building.

Together with an NPC tiefling monk named Verge, we successfully retrieved the documents. The plan was to take a pause at the book store Mehmen used to run, and then we’d evaluate how we’d handle the Orosta building infiltration. This did not go as planned—as soon as we popped into the back room of the book store, we were greeted by the powerful(?) Coven member Antonio.

During this session…

Conversation with an old friend

Antonio claimed he only wanted to speak with Finnith privately, and that if Finnith agreed, he’d allow the other three to “go about your nefarious business.” Finnith agreed to the proposition, so Allora, Nala, and Verge stepped out into the main room of the book store.

They found it ransacked—shelves turned over, paper and books scattered around the room. After a brief discussion of what to do next, they hid the Moon’s Eye documents in the store’s wreckage and started to listen at the door. Thankfully, they were hesitant about splitting up and leaving Finnith.

Finnith and Antonio had their conversation, which was really more of an argument than anything else. Finnith didn’t understand why Antonio had been referring to him as an “old friend,” when they’d only met a few times in opposition to each other. The Coven member seemed surprised that he didn’t remember “Cael,” or his time as Mel, which was Finnith’s name as a younger elf (following the tradition of elves choosing their own names when they turn 100).

After some hesitation, Finnith tried to remember (making some saving throws), slowly starting to recall that Cael was an elf he had known during his childhood. As he was recollecting this, the conversation moved forward. Antonio thought that Finnith was moving down the wrong path because of his Bad Lifestyle Decisions™. They argued about what the Coven believes and teaches and why Finnith stands against them (because, well, they try to hunt down tieflings and kill them, which is real bad). Antonio doesn’t understand, seeing the Coven’s actions as “necessary,” and Finnith continues to push back against that.

Near the end point, the Dungeon Master had me roll another saving throw, and I told him the result (it was maybe an 11, maybe lower). He then told me that Finnith’s Indefinite Madness (“Achieving my goal is the only thing of interest to me, and I’ll ignore everything else to pursue it.”) was no longer affecting him. This was something Finnith had picked up during our solo adventures after the big party split. With that no longer affecting him, Finnith could take a different tack to the conversation, and he actually managed to convince Antonio to join them?

Leaving Alame’a

Of course, that didn’t mean that the other party members were comfortable adding him to the group at this point. Antonio had been involved in kidnapping (and almost killing) Verge and Finnith in the past, giving the bard a lasting injury, and had until this very moment been involved with the Big Evil Organization. Allora and Nala agreed that it wasn’t a good idea for him to accompany us as we completed this mission, so Antonio left, promising to Finnith that he’ll find him some other time.

After this complication, the party agreed it would be best to go ahead and return to the Moon’s Eye base with the documents. They may return here after dropping off the documents. So, the party set out on their two-day journey back to the base.

Dreams

One night, Finnith reminded the other party members that with the dream spell, they can contact any sleeping creature they know on this plane of existence (so, no elves, but pretty much anyone else). With this spell, Nala spoke with her mother, the captured queen back in the dragonborn lands. She’s imprisoned separate from the king and the prince, Nala’s father and younger brother, but aside from that they all seem safe for the time being. Nala explained her reasoning for not returning just yet, and she plans to contact her father soon.

Allora spoke with the nameless tiefling, the leader of the Awoken Flame, a colony of tieflings who live in caves near the elven capital. The leader was glad to receive news from Allora, and as she left, he wished the blessings of Zariel upon her.

Reporting back

The rest of the journey passed uneventfully. When they returned to the Moon’s Eye base, Finnith, Allora, and Nala reported back to the leader, Mehmen. He didn’t tell the party what the documents contained but was glad to receive them, warning the party that their infiltration might draw more notice next time.

After that, the characters have the rest of the day to decompress and converse.

And wow, that was a long one! Lots of roleplay here. As a player, I really like having time to have in-character discussions about what has happened. I’m also really curious to see how the Antonio situation plays out. Finnith can’t really leave his past behind when he has someone close by who remembers it, after all.

I also love playing spellcasters because of spells like dream! It opens up a ton of possibilities. I’d had my eye on that spell ever since the party split up, and I grabbed it as soon as I could. Of course, those are the sorts of spells you want your Dungeon Master to be aware of ahead of time.

What’s next?

Will the party return to Alame’a? What’s going to happen with Antonio? Were we followed on our way back to the Moon’s Eye base? Why did Finnith’s Indefinite Madness abate when it did?

The wait between sessions is always killer, so I love finding D&D-adjacent things to do in the between time. I made a post about it here, and you better believe I wrote a long character journal entry after all that.

*The Moon’s Eye: a secretive organization that opposes the Coven of Eternal Light. Many of the good squad’s allies belong to this organization. They’re currently based out of a seaside manor a few days away from the elven capital, Alame’a.

**The Coven of Eternal Light: a group of sun elves the party has fought in the past. They believe that tieflings are harbingers of doom, and they draw power from a mysterious force they refer to as “the light.” They have political connections in Alame’a that have allowed them to centralize in the capital, which is bad news since they’re the bad guys.