%% date:: [[2024-03-19]] %% # [[124_20240319 Winter's Crest in Nicodranas]] ## Session Summary > [!tldr] [[124_20240319 Winter's Crest in Nicodranas]] > Nika mourned her dad, and Scura made things right with her by explaining the story about how Kai had been involved in Music's capture and torture. Scura offered to do a ceremony for Kai, but Nika said it was not necessary. She seemed very pragmatic about the kind of person her dad was. Instead, Scura asked Nika about Arden, the person Nika loves, and Nika told her the story of a family of Autumn Eladrins that had taken her in while she was in the Feywild. Scura offered to do a Sending to Arden, but Nika said she had to think about it first. > > Later, Scura prayed to Sehanine for Kai's soul and communed with her goddess for the first time in a long time, after her being unreachable in the Hellfire Prison. Sehanine blessed Scura and gave her a few new quests: uniting the Pallid Elves, making it legal to worship Sehanine and other gods everywhere, and right the wrongs of the Pallid Elves being taught strict versions of her teachings. > > Nika talked to Yussa and researched what she realized was likely a hag's bargain that sent her to the Feywild. Yussa lent her a book about hags that made her think that perhaps Kai had made a bargain with a hag to account for his meteoric rise through the ranks, and possibly, Nika's sojourn to the Feywild was a result of that. Luric may also have struck a bargain of his own. Nika learned that the old lady she'd been stuck with was one of the hags we'd fought. > > Xenia learned a lot of things about Aeor, a flying city that crashed in a place called Foren in The Frozen North. Its ruins are still intact, and rich with arcane knowledge, artifacts, and dangers... not to mention yetis. Xenia also tried to hide the fact that he was researching how to make a Potion of Longevity, but Scura found out and asked him not to do it on his own. She offered to help him instead. Xenia also found out that the map fragment he's been carrying around is of Mutalos, a part of Aeor that is a bit of a Bermuda's Triangle where expeditions just get lost. > > We celebrated a lovely Winter's Crest in Yussa's tower with Yussa, Gwendolyne, Wensforth, Dax, and Fenka. We exchange gifts, talked to the Winter's Crest tree (thanks to Nika), danced, and celebrated the end of the year together. ^summary %% ## Video [Private video - Mine](https://youtu.be/_3H5dkybN54) 00:00:00 Andy's mum 00:02:45 We're so lucky we have each other 00:04:14 Andy wants to see me every week for three hours 00:05:22 Andy asked and he's amazing 00:06:21 Andy's a teenage boy 00:08:06 Step one for how to people 00:09:33 Andy shows his tits 00:10:10 He doesn't even have the date right 00:11:23 The ask 00:12:20 the rest of the game [Private video - Murathan's](https://youtu.be/Kfuj-2x73Lg) [TWC Video](https://youtu.be/jEyPCnP2HS0) Notes: https://notes.nicolevanderhoeven.com/ttrpgs/Temporary+White+Circle/124_20240319+Winter's+Crest+in+Nicodranas TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 Start of game 00:01:39 Going in and out of Yussa's tower 00:04:53 Xenia wants to go to the Cobalt Soul 00:06:48 Nika mourns her dad 00:21:21 Scura approaches Nika 00:24:27 Andy looks at me when I talk about expectations 00:26:02 Scura offers to Send to Arden 00:28:34 Nika likes hanging out with us 00:29:06 What's the deal with Nika's shadow? 00:32:54 Arden sounds hot 00:33:51 Scura is being curious 00:35:43 Why does Nika smell of cinnamons and apples? 00:36:10 Even his name is hot 00:37:18 A prayer for Kai at twilight 00:42:35 I lay no claim on you 00:45:33 I'll make sure you're not forgotten 00:49:44 Researching Nika's quest 00:53:06 Video off to cry 01:09:30 Tome of Hags 01:20:30 Break 01:21:01 The Night Mare crashed onto the pier 01:26:15 The Escape Dungeon 01:30:16 In the Cobalt Soul Library 01:36:54 Belated aftercare 01:39:12 Xenia researches stuff in the Library 01:39:45 It's Aeor not Aeo 01:42:37 Xenia tries to hide research 01:45:58 Lore dumping about Aeor 01:51:16 I notice Xenia is hiding something 01:53:11 Xenia's extra attractive today, but he's 11 years too young 02:03:02 Researching Consecution madness 02:05:09 Researching Mutalos 02:08:23 Researching Den Hythenos, goldfish 02:09:00 Andy can't say Xhorhasian 02:11:10 Winter's Crest night 02:11:50 Goblins on the brain 02:16:49 Nika talks to the Winter's Crest tree 02:21:01 🎁 Scura to Xenia 02:24:30 🎁 Scura to Nika 02:26:37 🎁 Wensforth's gifts to others 02:27:30 🎁 Wensforth's gift to Scura 🐠 02:30:52 End of Winter's Crest 02:36:36 Real estate prices in Port Damali 02:40:08 Selling off the ring of Asmodeus and the look on Andy's face 02:41:50 Can we have invited Dax and Fenka? 02:44:32 Messing with Andy who's trying to remember something 02:45:25 Nicodramas 02:48:00 I was never actually gone but I broke up with everyone ⭐ Scura getting to spend some time making things right with Nika and them sharing a nice moment talking about Kai. ⭐ The scene with Sehanine and the winter leaves and moonbeam swirling around Scura after a long time of not hearing from Sehanine was the most touching scene I've ever experienced in a game. Just beautiful and perfect and moving. ⭐ Nika's lore dump about Arden, the hot autumn eladrin. ⭐ Finding out stuff about Aeor and hags makes me excited about what's coming next. ⭐ The Winter's Crest tree. Best NPC ever! How awesome that Nika spoke to it! Loved that!! ⭐ Being able to give my friends in-game gifts. The Winter's Crest celebration scene was just such a nice way to wrap up the session. 🪄 Lulu and Tyler had been here. ⭐ Being back, even though I never left. %% --- ## Recap ![[123_20240220 Magical snooping and what the fuck is up with that^summary]] --- ## Log Repairs in [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/The Open Quay|The Open Quay]] are going pretty slow. [[The Glisteners]] guild, privately owned subsidiary to [[The Uludan Family]] and owned by the Marquis himself, thwarted Yussa's efforts to purchase materials. Nika needs some time alone to grieve. [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Yussa Errenis|Yussa]] has a meditation space. Arabic architecture like Alhambra in Yussa's tower. Cool marble, floor cushions. Nika isn't religious. - Nika thinks about when she was in [[Ambervale]] with Arden, fighting frost giants. It was the last time she was truly happy. It's been two years since she left. - "The Little Big Brothers" are her brothers. - No one knows what happened. Nika tells mum and the little big brothers. Town criers: ([[King Bertrand Dwendal]]'s idea). - Tool of propaganda. - [[Kai Arness]] has been tragically killed in a volcanic eruption in [[Kamordah]]. - Nika knows her [[Mother Arness|Mother]], [[Alexander Arness|Alexander]], [[Joven Arness|Joven]], know about her father's death. [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Yussa Errenis|Yussa]] seems to come and go with [[Aygonath|Gwendolyn]]. Sometimes brings news that [[Sydnock Truscan]] has taken over the Guildmaster role. The Prime Arbiter is temporarily his advisor [[Amandina Darkflame]]. [[Lady Floella Volcain Hemsworth|Lady Floella]] was also killed there while "visiting wineries for charity purposes". [[King Snurre - the Fire Giant King]] has left [[Mount Mentiri]] and is heading towards [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Rexxentrum|Rexxentrum]] demanding to meet [[King Bertrand Dwendal]]. Kai wanted Nika to be a wizard, but she wasn't very good at that. She was hoping he'd change, but maybe that was foolish. I offer to cast Sending to [[Arden]]. Nika says she'll think about it. She's been in [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/The Feywild|The Wilds]] for 9 years of her life, but here, time did not go at the same pace. She doesn't know how much time has passed for Arden. What's the deal with Nika's Shadow? - Something happened in the Wilds and she can kind of do things on her own. - Her name: Akinorev, or Akin for short. - Nika does not want to give her a voice! Let's keep her quiet. Arden is an Autumn Eladrin. There's a family of Autumn Eladrin in [[Ambervale]]. Nika was the only human there. Nika doesn't want to do a ceremony for her dad. She feels she already said goodbye, and their relationship was complicated. The cinnamon and apple smell from Nika is from autumn smells from Arden and Ambervale. I say a prayer for Kai at twilight. [[Sehanine]] visits me. ^732bbd - It's been hard to know whether she was there in [[Mount Mentiri]] or not... did she forsake me? But no, she's here. - Moonbeams like strands of silver hair, fragments of winter leaves - Her commandments ring in my head - *Let the shadows protect you from the burning light of fanatical good and the absolute darkness of evil.* - It's not just absolute darkness of evil... it's those who claim moral righteousness but do evil even though they fervently believe they're doing good. - *Walk unbridled and untethered, forging new memories and experience.* - In [[The Menagerie Coast]], we're free to worship, but those in [[The Dwendalian Empire|The Empire]] are increasingly restrained and censored. When gods are not believed and not worshipped, the danger is that they fade away. - She lays no claim on me as a worshipper. "My sister Raei" or even [[Pelor|The Dawnfather]]. To worship her is to worship the freedom to choose fun, joy, mischievousness. ^5057d0 - She charges me to: - Right the wrong of [[The Pallid Elves]] being taught very strict versions of her teachings. - Reunite the Elves in the face of their diaspora. - Figure out a way for her to be worshipped in The Empire. All the Pallid Elves, and everyone I love, are somehow connected-- we're still looking at the same moon. [[Gwendolyne]] repeats that [[Gelidon]], *The Nightmare in Ivory* is in [[Mythburrow]] in [[Uthodurn]]. But there's also a code of honour among dragons, so she doesn't really want to betray her own kind, either. Nika made a wish, an old lady appeared, and then she found herself in the Feywild. Was Luric in service of her father, or was [[Kai Arness]] in service of Luric? Kai totally made a deal with a hag? with [[Luric Adronoss]]? to get his job. Did he get his wealth that way? Did he give Nika up? She was a child so she didn't really care or know. She assumed he'd worked his way up. ^779e66 Nika was in the service or lodging of an old lady. There was nothing malevolent about her. She was in a not good noble household in [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Rexxentrum|Rexxentrum]]. She wished upon a star to go somewhere else, and she went somewhere worse-- she found herself with this old lady and two old lady friends she kept talking about until Nika ran away, taking her fate in her own hands. [[Lord Sumerian]] and [[Arden]] found Nika in Ambervale. Yussa thinks that there's something fishy about the relationship between Luric and Kai. He thinks Kai had a meteoric rise up the ranks within the Empire. He thinks this woman was almost certainly a hag and maybe there was one or two bargains that were struck. - Did Luric make a bargain with someone who set him an impossible task? - Did Kai make a bargain with someone that meant that Nika would go to the Feywild? Yussa gives Nika a book about [[Hags]]: - It's totally the ones that we fought. - Hags have magical powers for cursing or extending their lifespan - They snatch and devour children and then they give birth to a hag daughter - mortal form is often a withered crone or grandmother - Spiteful arguments among the coven, but they're more powerful together. - Can craft hag eyes that they can jointly see from - types of hags - green hags - found in forests - bheur hags - Probably the hags that Nika lived with - found in wintery lands - anis hags - eat children - sea hags - live in dismal underwater lairs surrounded by aquatic hags - [[The Hagmother]] - the oldest hag and the progenitor and originator of all the hags in Exandria. - She arrived in the world just after its founding. - She has a soft spot for humanoids that caused her to be exiled and cursed by her kind. She wanders the land making deals with people who are in dire straits: she gives them the power they need to get themselves out of bad situations, in exchange for their services: - sometimes ending lives - some of them result in the creation of more hags. - Nika thinks there might be a connection between her father, Luric, and the Hagmother. We pass the lighthouse in [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Nicodranas|Nicodranas]] that is dedicated to [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Melora|Melora]], between [[The Restless Wharf]] and [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/The Open Quay|The Open Quay]]. We heard in the night a splintering, crunching sound. There's a ship that has pushed onto the pier (definitely the ghoul ship in [[002_20240305 The Curse of Barnacle Betty]]). We see the harbourmaster, [[Roscoe]], who tells us there were ghouls on the ship. Nobody will set sail on the ship again. It was called [[The Night Mare]]. According to himl, The City Watch did their job... more or less. Something called [[The Escape Dungeon]], the Open Hero Championship. - The Enigmas win, the City Watch Ale-Sniffers place second - [[Lord Athesias Uludan]] is the one announcing the winners Winter's Crest is a secular holiday. We go to [[Library of the Cobalt Soul - Nicodranas]] - [[Qiwe]], an elf, is there at the front desk. She's not exactly happy to see us. She says [[Isaris]] is well when I ask. - Do we need [[Curator Onelio Giammaria]]? Probably not. - Qiwe doesn't seem like she wants to see [[Wally]] either. - I cast *Enhance Ability* to chat Qiwe up and try to meet up later with Isaris. She says no because it's Winter's Crest today. But she says I/we should come back another time - she's usually here. Xenia researches stuff in the library - [[Aeor]] - There used to be flying cities in the [[The Age of Arcanum]], during which there were very powerful mages who were almost like gods themselves. One of the largest cities was Aeor. - It crashed in a huge crater in a place called [[Foren]] in [[The Frozen North]]. It's pretty dangerous, the ruins-- there are people who are rumoured to be frozen in time there. There are magical fields in some sort of snowglobe, like a bubble, where people are still caught. Diverse humanoids huddled in the street. Their bodies and clothing and belongings were unharmed in the crash. Others were found as if they were bracing for something. (Like the figures in Pompeii that were frozen in ash.) There are rumours of more of these, suspicions that there was powerful magic and artifacts, perhaps creations and technologies that are unknown these days because the knowledge was lost. This is why the items there are such a huge draw for adventurers. Secrets and wealth too. - Lots of exhibitions go there and never come back. - There are rumours of yetis and yeti colonies there. - There are fears of some virus or disease that some people have caught there. - Teleporting to Aeor is a bad idea because the residual arcane energy in the Frozen North makes teleporting very unstable. - Something secret: book about potions - He wants more of the [[Potion of Longevity]]. ^352282 - He's taken it three times and it never backfired, so he thinks that it should be okay... - I try to convince him not to keep secrets from the others. - I offer to help him make potions. - Yussa also warns him that if he does do it, he should do this with the best ingredients in the best way. - He's going to look for the ingredients of the potion - Wally's [[Consecution]] madness - We don't find much about this here. - Some stuff on [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Luxon Beacon|Luxon Beacon]], which holds souls somehow. - [[Mutalos]] is a part of [[Aeor]] that Xenia has found a map on and has had it forever. ^c639b0 - The map doesn't make sense - the river's sort of running into the mountain - It's a 30 mile diameter patch of wilderness that the wildfolk avoid. The rumours are that the environment changes every morning. - When expeditions go through there, they just get lost. - There are notes from an Expositor of [[The Cobalt Soul]] that says that there's something of power there - could be something about the [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Kryn Dynasty|Kryn]]. Scura's research - [[Den Hythenos]] - Dens are the noble houses in [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Xhorhas|Xhorhas]] amongst the [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Kryn Dynasty|Kryn]] - Not much on them either. - There was some suspicion that these people were goblins as opposed to elves. Is Wally secretly a goblin? GOblinkin Winter's Crest night - [[Gwendolyne]] brings in a tree and [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Yussa Errenis|Yussa]] doesn't like it but deals with it because he luuuurves her. - 🎁 Gwendolyne to Yussa: "This one I kept. I saved it." Yussa's eyes go glassy but I can't see what it was!! - Yussa didn't get Gwendolyne a gift! - Nika casts *Speak with Plants* on the Winter's Crest tree. - [[Wensforth]] is nerdily introverted and androgynous, but he does enjoy the dancing and celebrations against his better judgment. He brings some amazing food and wine from vineyards that have now been burnt down because they were in [[Kamordah]]. - Circle dancing, but Nika hates circles so she square dances. - 🎁 Scura to Xenia: a watch to reassure him that time is ticking. Gnomish make. Time ticking is not as bad as he might think, even though that's a recurring theme for Xenia (being stuck in time like when he was petrified). - ![[twc-pocketwatch-for-xenia.png]] - 🎁 Scura to Nika: like a snowglobe, but autumnal leaves instead. The scene of a forest in autumn. Oranges and deep purple leaves and a wide open forest. It's a promise that we'll get her back. - ![[twc-autumn-globe.png]] - 🎁 Wensforth to Yussa: beautiful robe gown similar to the one he normally wears - 🎁 Wensforth to Gwendolyne: waistcoat with gold brocade - 🎁 Wensforth to Scura: a box like Andy's awesome dice box. Inside it is a quill from an exotic bird and a shimmering ink. It's like there's a gem inside it. - 🎁 Wensforth to Xenia: Long leather strap for his spellbook. - 🎁 Wensforth to Milla: Ring for one of her horns, pale silver to match her colouring. - 🎁 Wensforth (and Milla) to Nika: A silver pendant locket with Milla's hair. - 🎁 Wensforth to Wally: gorgeous, slightly too flamboyant shirt with a silk interior. %% - 🎁 Scura to Wally: - ![[twc-pendant-of-raei-and-sehanine.png]] - ![[twc-sehanine-raei-pelor-pendant.png]] - ![[twc-pelor-pendant.png]] - 🎁 Scura to Milla: Star/snowflake on a starry night. It flips open and there's a compass pointing due north. - ![[twc-compass-for-milla.png]] %% Have Dax at Winter's Crest with Yussa. New Dawn will be celebrated on the beaches of Nicodranas... next time, at the start of the new year. It ends with a midnight feast. Xenia is practicing *Magnificent Mansion*. %% # Text Elements # Drawing ```json {"type":"excalidraw","version":2,"source":"https://github.com/zsviczian/obsidian-excalidraw-plugin/releases/tag/2.0.25","elements":[],"appState":{"theme":"dark","gridSize":null,"viewBackgroundColor":"#ffffff"}} ``` %%