When I wrote “no rest for the weary” last time, I didn’t expect the action of this session to mostly take place during the party’s rest, but here we are!

In these Campaign Diary posts, I talk about the campaign I play in and how our latest session turned out!

What’s SBotLL again?

SBotLL is the campaign I play in! It’s been running for over three years now. There are two parties: one on the surface and the other in the Underdark. I play on the surface squad as the elf bard Finnith, with my two friends playing the dragonborn rogue Nala and the tiefling ranger Allora.

Recap

Nala has kept information about what actually happened during the party’s last mission from Allora and Finnith. When the two mention it to her, she hesitates to share what she knows. This breach of trust upsets Allora and confuses Finnith.

The party also runs into Amuulqalo, an NPC dragonborn warlock who has temporarily parted ways with the group. He was suspected by the Mystan clan to be someone who stole Zuggtmoy’s blood from them. After a lot of discussion, negotiation, and at least one major scene made, Allora and Finnith went to vouch for him while he was under questioning. He leaves after this.

The party returns to Vindus’ realm and reports that they completed the quest. They receive additional power from him. But, Allora and Nala’s disagreement has yet to be resolved, and the party is exhausted.

During this session…

Allora finds her room in Vindus’ castle and goes to sleep, set on avoiding Nala for now. As she sleeps, she has a dream.

In this dream, she is in the woods returning from a hunting trip. She finds a river and begins cleaning her weapons and preparing her catches. She finishes up and goes to wash her face. As she does so, she sees a figure who looks exactly like her across the river.

These have appeared to the party before. These other-selves appear to their respective party members in dreams or visions, sometimes while the character rests. It’s not clear why this happens, but a character’s counterpart seems to represent a specific part of that character—a part the character hides or pushes away.

Allora’s counterpart begins the conversation. Allora is reticent to respond at first, but she does begin to engage with her in dialogue. The two discuss the falling out with Nala. Allora is still hurt, but she won’t call it a betrayal as her counterpart does. Allora’s counterpart reminds her that she’ll eventually get hurt if she leaves herself open like this.

Not only that, but her other friends could get hurt as well. Allora’s counterpart pulls something from her bag.

The item is a black mask shaped like the top of a snake’s head. Her counterpart says it will give her sight when she has none, strength to fight when she needs it most, and the agility to avoid getting hurt when it counts most. She tosses it across the river, and Allora catches it. Allora asks what the “cost” of accepting the mask is.

While her counterpart wouldn’t necessarily call it a cost, she does say that using the mask will cause her to close her heart off to others and make it harder for them to reach her.

Allora ultimately refuses the mask, saying that she doesn’t want something that will change her that way. She tosses it back to her counterpart. Allora’s counterpart says that she’ll be here if Allora changes her mind. After Allora thanks her, the counterpart disappears, and the dream ends.

Allora wakes and finds that it’s sometime in the mid-morning. She walks into the dining room, but none of the other party members are there, so she goes to find Finnith… who she finds, except that he’s not, well, waking up at all, even though technically elves don’t need to sleep in the first place.

She calls Vindus over, who appraises the situation. The deity tells her that he’s sent Finnith the help he can, that his soul is in a frail state, and that there isn’t much they can do for him right now.

So, how did this happen? Let’s back up a bit—

As Finnith rests, his counterpart, who calls himself Osorei, appears and tries to talk to Finnith. This has happened a handful of times before; they don’t get along. Osorei says that he represents Finnith’s fear, and now he’s also saying that he’s the core of his being, and he’s tired of Finnith rejecting him.

Finnith does not want to talk. Osorei insists. Finnith asks a number of questions, but Osorei points out that he’s deflecting from the issue at hand.

Yes, Finnith is literally arguing with himself.

The conversation goes in a few circles before Finnith has had it and use the vind rune to throw a shrieking bolt at Osorei. And now they’re fighting. Osorei has different abilities than Finnith does, and despite his best efforts, Finnith can’t take that many blows. He loses consciousness as he feels the sensation of falling.

When he comes to, he’s in a stone room with one closed door as the exit. Beyond the door is complete darkness that not even darkvision can get through. After a long period of hesitation, Finnith leaves the room and starts walking through the darkness. He has to push through it; it feels thicker than air around him. As he’s walking, a wind guides him to another door with a torch beside it burning a blue flame.

Inside is a tavern scene. Finnith can’t discern the details of most of the people’s faces. But at the bar are three figures—the members of the band Finnith used to belong to as well as their manager. Etzir, Thalio, and Halea are there, but they don’t acknowledge Finnith or seem to realize that he’s there.

The three are having a conversation. Thalio comments on how Finnith always seems to be throwing himself into conversations in a particular, sort of performative way, but he doesn’t know why and wonders if Finnith is trying to impress them. Halea and Etzir have noticed the same thing, but they point out that he’s more trying to convince them—and himself. He’s actually afraid, but he’s performing like he does on stage to hide that. Halea wishes that Finnith would be a little more open with them, because they’re his friends.

The conversation ends, and the three leave. The next room only has a mirror in it. When Finnith walks up to the mirror, his skin turns to stone and crumbles away, leaving behind Finnith as he looked before leaving his hometown on his 100th birthday—that is, just before Finnith changed his name from Mel as part of elven coming-of-age. The Mel in the mirror steps out and begins speaking to him, but Finnith balks at being called Mel again.

When Finnith took on the name Finnith, he pretended like he was never Mel and that Mel basically didn’t exist. Finnith’s mirror self/Osorei/Mel tells him that he needs to accept where he came from, or else he’s just the empty persona without any foundation or honesty.

After a long conversation, Finnith begrudgingly agrees to be more honest with himself and his friends, and the dream… vision… thing ends.

He wakes up, and that’s the session!

Running a session with absent players

The player for Nala was absent this time, so our DM focused things around the players in attendance. It worked out that not much time passed in this session, and we still felt like we accomplished something without the potential concern of “well, what would this person do if they were actually here?”

Avoiding that issue isn’t always plausible—sometimes events proceed regardless of who is present at the session—but when possible, it feels better to skirt around it.

Incorporating unusual elements to your game

We’ve been in this campaign for a few years now. And, before that, the DM had already gotten to know the players pretty well. Many of us are Persona fans, so the idea of “other selves” was a cool element to add into the game.

But it’s all very dependent on your group! Some people really enjoy being in a campaign with a canonical setting with little to no homebrew. Some people wouldn’t enjoy the roleplay-heavy moments that the other selves introduce. So, you have to know your group reasonably well if you’d like to incorporate a similarly unorthodox elements to your game.

Thanks for reading!