#my corellon larethian was fun though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

outeremissary · 1 year

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!! (a surprise for you :))

A surprise indeed, haha. As usual, this was how I discovered I had posted something. This was uhh. Not my most prepared night for it.

Hmm... I guess this will just be random rambling, and I don't have any nice, new art for this, so it's going to all be old art that's mostly not colored (lot of it is years old and I hadn't uhhh figured out the color thing). Anyway, Caina Lilindel, the ghost who haunts this blog and I am geased to have as my pfp forever.

First the meta notes: Caina was a grugach (mechanically wood elf- the UA for grugach hadn't been released yet) rogue inquisitive I played in a Curse of Strahd game that ran from 2017 to 2020. He was loosely based on a side character from an abandoned project I worked on periodically during my first year of university (which was then loosely inspired by something in VtM, but that's not important), and I made him as a quick, edgy character who I wouldn't mind dying because the DM was very adamant that the first area was a meat grinder and we might TPK. He survived though, and I was left to play my joke concept straight. And then I got really into that. Really, really into that.

Caina was a secretive exile who had been wandering the world alone for almost three decades at the start of the game. He was sharp-tongued and abrasive, never willing to help anyone for free. He hated risk but easily plunged into recklessness at the behest of emotions he made only the barest efforts to keep in check. He was always pushing away those who might befriend him, and every time someone responded to his vulnerability with kindness he recoiled as if they could burn him- or as if he would burn them. He hated being touched but yearned for intimacy. He killed without a second thought but argued passionately against dealing out further death. He was an absolutely wretched liar on the occasion he tried, and in moments of peace he was an excellent cook and unfailingly kind to children. His primary hobbies were card games and reading unimaginably trashy novels- he was the only member of the party who recognized van Richten, and that was because he was a longtime fan of a horribly prolific series of pulp thrillers based on van Richten's adventures. He had a way of following those he respected or cared about as if starstruck- he never knew what to do with his feelings. And despite his own tendency to break his word or bail on things he could never recover from anything he felt was betrayal. I always loved the combination of vulnerability and prickliness.

(backstory summary that got ahead of me ahead. and this. isn't even everything.)

Caina was born in a small semi-nomadic community in a hilly land and lived his early life without ever straying from his home. Life moved slowly and quietly there, the circular turning of seasons the only visible mark of the gentle passage of time in a community of near immortals. He was one of very few children and the spacing between the youths of the community was easily such that a child could be the only in their age group all their young life until reaching the more even ground of adulthood. But Caina was fortunate. There was another child his age in his home: a boy born the very same year as him, timing so close that the two were often called twins. That boy was Avél, Caina's best friend, constant companion, and the first person to lose his life at Caina's hands.

Caina was a quiet, diligent child who always went along with everything his more outgoing friend wanted to do. From a young age they shared the same dreams of adventure and tale-worthy glory far from home- although Caina would never be able to say if heroic legends had always set his heart racing or if this dream too was simply following Avél. He was known as a sweet child, one constantly fretted over and sheltered by his mother, who feared for a son who had been born sickly, and his grandmother (the family matriarch), who was intent on raising an eldest son who would be useful to his family. He would have duties when he aged, his grandmother knew: to his parents, to his grandparents, to his cousins, and if the Most Revered was good, to a sister who could pass down the name of the family to another generation. It wasn't for eldest sons or only sons to stuff their heads full of fairy tales and stray.

In contrast to quiet Caina, Avél was a troublemaker and a free spirit. He was never one to be confined by a rule if he could challenge it, and as a second son with no sister who would one day rely on him to keep the house for her, Avél's life had a certain openness to it. His tricks and disappearances were met with gentle scolding but never with restriction. He could imagine any future ahead of him, could dream of danger and distant lands, of anything in the world he desired. Anything he wished for might be his. And what he wished for was to be taken under the wing of the gruff old huntress Siyir. Siyir had been further afield than any of the others who wore the title of ranger. She had gone well beyond simply charting the movements of the community or passing messages between the pockets of the grugach people or brokering trade deals. Siyir had slain a griffin. She had descended into human lands, had seen mountains that spat fire and waters that spanned the horizon. She was Avél's vision: a legend who had stepped through campfire flames to stand in the mundane material world. And of course, this meant that Caina worshiped her too.

So the stage of life was set. Two boys, near opposites in every way, but each the other's closest confidante and the mirror of his own experiences- or perhaps less a mirror than a shadow and the bright thing that cast it. Avél pulled Caina out of his shell and into new experiences. He supplied dreams enough for two and invented adventures to match. There was an awe that Avél inspired in Caina. He wanted to nurture passion that could match his friend's to more truly inhabit their shared dreams. He wanted skills to match Avél's natural athleticism and way with words. It gave him a hunger to keep up, to learn, to know, to show that he too was equal. But nothing he did ever seemed to bring the two of them even. His boldness crumpled under caution, his hesitance and appeals to the wisdom of elders earning him affectionate teasing as a stick in the mud. He could never run as fast or far as Avél or climb as high or win tussles between them without tricks that brought out whines of "no fair! do it right!" The skills Caina learned alone bored Avél. Cooking was dull and far beneath a legend, Avél insisted. Wayfinding was useful but too much work- Caina was the smart one, so he could take care of it, couldn't he? And the runes of a seldom used writing system (taught to Caina by the community's shaman) were entertaining only for an afternoon or two- he laughed when Caina asked later if he'd been practicing them, and Caina's ears burned with shame for finding them so fascinating in the first place.

With age came a sharper sense of the distance between them. Avél was the golden child of the community, Caina his keeper. When Avél broke his arm falling out of a tree on a forbidden excursion it was worth a day's scolding that quickly melted into doting and repetition of the grand tale of his adventure for months, while Caina was reprimanded for allowing Avél to hurt himself and then quickly forgotten as more than a timid accessory to Avél. Siyir took interest in Avél, but Caina quickly realized had little in him: she hardly acknowledged Caina when she spoke to the two of them together, and she had a way of only offering things when Caina wasn't around. And Avél, for his part, hardly seemed to protest surprise hunting trips at dawn or archery advice when Caina was unavailable. He always shared what he learned afterwards, but no matter how many times Caina asked for Avél to bring him along the next time there was always an excuse when that next time came around. Suspicion set in that his friend was hoarding time with the huntress to himself. And when the changes of puberty began Avél grew taller and filled out better. His features emerged from teen acne as defined and handsome, new edges to his face only making the soft twinkle in his eyes seem brighter and the creases of his smile kinder. Caina stayed spindly and awkward. It was painfully clear that strength would never come to him naturally, and without it a slight edge of grace didn't feel like much. He began to distance himself from Avél to have time to hone skills his friend had and he felt he lacked. But it was never enough to do more than keep up. Just to keep up, and hope desperately that Avél's aimless talent would one day lose to training.

And then Caina's mother gave birth to a daughter, and Caina was too old to miss the meaning of the event. The first brother's duty was to his sister- to be a part of her household more constant than a partner, for those were fluid and often changed over the long turning of the decades, and more vigorous than a mother, who would one day be claimed by the years. To share in her generation and her legacy. Caina would go from a childhood sidekick to Avél to a supporting character in the tale of Cailo. There would be no breath for his own story, his own adventures. Like that he added Avél's freedom to the endless list of envies.

Yet Avél, in his careless optimistic way, never acknowledged the change. They still had the same dreams, the same loves, the same life. Even as Avél spent more time with Siyir as Caina helped care for his baby sister Avél danced around it. Any time the future was questioned Avél suddenly had a new story that needed telling immediately or somewhere to go or something that needed doing. And sometimes he simply laughed and pushed it away.

In the midst of this stormy sea of adolescence, Siyir decided to take an apprentice.

The decision wasn't an announcement, but a challenge. The ranger let it be known to all of the youths that she would take on whichever best passed a series of tests she set. Worth, she said, was the only way to decide who was fit to carry a legacy like hers. And that worth superseded all else: she would take her chosen apprentice and no other, and it was known without ever being said that likewise nothing could take her chosen from her.

Worth.

Caina knew all her skills secondhand, but had practiced them to the best perfection he could imagine. He knew the one who would ultimately be the only true competitor inside and out. Siyir had never seen him, but he could make her. He would show her that he was worthy.

He matched Avél in every test. He could shoot, he could hunt, he could track, he could pitch a camp of his own. He was still Avél's superior when it came to navigation, even if his friend had improved. The few other challengers quickly proved half-hearted and dropped out. It was only Caina and Avél, just like it had always been.

The night before Siyir's last test, Caina returned home late. He had gone out to gather herbs for the shaman, Galen, and been sidetracked by the urge to practice one last thing. When he passed by Siyir's dwelling, he caught the sound of a familiar voice that gave him pause: his grandmother was in Siyir's home.

He crept closer, and the conversation became clearer. His grandmother was asking what she was meant to do if Caina won the contest. Who would be there for Cailo? Was their family simply to dwindle, plagued by foolish wanderlust and misfortune? Caina could hear in his mind Siyir's counterargument: that many daughters grew up alone, that Cailo didn't want for cousins who could help her, that their father was still with them and far from old. That one son was an acceptable concession for a woman who had once shot a griffin from the sky. That maybe Cailo didn't want her legacy either.

But Siyir said none of those things.

"Avél is my apprentice." It wasn't her usual brusque tone. It was a reassurance, a gentle correction. "I just couldn't let it get to the boy's fool head by letting him have that without a little fight."

Every semblance of hope evaporated. He hardly remembered the rest of the night- only the listless dreams that tore at him whenever he tried to rest. He was trapped in a haze.

He was still in that haze when he rose before dawn and found Avél.

They walked out and away from the early spring camp, Avél chattering all the way and glancing over here and there at Caina with something that sometimes looked like relief and other times looked like guilt. Caina was quiet for the most part. He smiled and nodded and urged Avél on. Once or twice he laughed. It was so easy to slip into familiar patterns while following familiar paths. By the time they reached the cliff over the falls, the light made it clear that despite the lingering morning mist dawn was well behind them.

Many years before, a lone long-branched pine growing at the edge of the falls had fallen. The reason was unknown- no one had been around to see it go- but now it lingered in death as persistently as it had in life, laying its lattice of branches out across the open air to form a precarious bridge from one side of the gorge to the other. Mist from the falls left it permanently slick, and between the spring rains and the snowmelt still trickling down the surging falls had crept in precariously close.

When they were younger, they had often talked about crossing it. Avél had take a few steps out, falls plunging down on one side and open air on the other, and Caina managed a half step before begging Avél to come back. "Next time I'll do it," Avél always laughed.

"What do you say- for old time's sake?"

To hear the proposal come from Caina stopped Avél dead. His laughter wasn't the familiar bell of joy. It cracked at the edges- nerves, perhaps, or surprise.

"As if I could say no."

And Avél stepped forward, hesitating a moment at the edge. His eyes flicked to Caina and his mouth hardened into a thin smile. He took his first step onto the trunk. A few steps later, Caina followed.

Looking back, Caina was never sure what he had wanted from that morning. It was like a dream, the roaring falls eating the sound of the world around them and the mists swallowing everything outside that tiny expanse and the figure of his friend.

Somewhere near the center, Avél stopped. He turned and shouted something. Caina read the words on his lips: Let's go back.

Avél was moving his feet, trying to reposition to walk back, when the dreadful inevitable happened. In the blink of an eye he had gone from upright to clinging to one of the branches jutting out from the edge of the trunk below. There was no thought when Caina rushed forward recklessly, bracing himself against one of the more solid branches as he grabbed a slick hand just in time as his beloved friend's support cracked and fell away, useless. Avel dangled at Caina's mercy, clinging with both hands onto Caina's arm as he struggled to find a foothold to pull himself up.

In this moment of nightmare, lucidity returned.

Caina would never be able to say why he brought his friend to the falls. He didn't know why he challenged him at their stupidest, most dangerous childhood game. He didn't know why he followed so close, never allowing Avél the space to turn around. All coincidence. All error. None of it conscious. None of it him.

But he could never forget the moment he chose to let go.

If Avél screamed, Caina never heard. The falls swallowed the sound greedily. In the constant roar of white noise, it seemed like Avél was as silent as a shadow, and when he disappeared into the mist below he became every bit as transient.

There were searches, of course. There was weeping. And finally there was blame. Caina hadn't planned the crime, and only began to hide it too late. Put before the gods in all of Galen's power, he cracked. He had believed like a fool that he had hated Avél. Now as its target he understood what true hate was. Yet for all that, there wasn't heart in a community that couldn't remember ever having an execution to kill another so soon after their loss. No one could remember the curse ever being used either, but Galen knew it all the same.

It was with nothing but the clothes on his back and a new fear of death that Caina left the home he had been cast out of. The brand of defilement burned on his hand, the angry red scar weeks from true healing. Cast out from his home, from all kin, from the sight of the gods themselves, who had sealed his exile with the cursed brand. The legend he had made for himself was one of misery. And beyond its edge, only wandering without rest- always running from the guilt carved into skin and soul.

#I'm sorry this is so so long he's been on my brain lately actually #I am once more ruminating on his life and his world #the caina family tree is Real and very interesting to me because he was actually raised in his paternal grandmother's household #instead of his maternal grandmother's (much more common)#his mother was adopted into his father's family because there hadn't been any daughters in over two hundred years #and it was a source of great anxiety for his grandmother. she had a son and male cousins and nephews #but sons and male cousins and nephews aren't enough. they give support but not legacy. and they wander off if you have too many.#but there was always tension having someone else's daughter in the household #I did not mention galen at all. or hino. or cailo. I'm sorry to have not gotten to talk about any of those three.#I had already gotten Too Sidetracked by lineage and was trying to focus it down!! so siyir was most important #I developed some mythology as well for this. by the end I uhh. don't think that what I was working with resembled my source material at all #my corellon larethian was fun though #I'm going to REALLY regret this in the morning #which is. hm. three hours from now #ask game #ask me emithing #caina lilindel #userharps

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primalmike-blog · 1 year

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Concepts for the Start of our Spelljamming Campaign.

As I mentioned before, my basic concept for a campaign was for the players to form a party of adventurous treasure seekers on a ship. Pirates. In a universe of thousands of cultures and worlds with no central authority(unless you as DM want to create one), it seemed natural that right and wrong would be more factionally based than any other concern.

Why? Factions are interested in many things. Sustainability and growth are chief amongst these. Even the most morally good group does not want to cease existing because they couldn't bring themselves to compete for viability with other possibly more aggressive ideologies. Would the faction of Corellon Larethian lie down and allow groups of evil to erase the importance of their art? Absolutely not. It is, and always will be, a competition. For the actors in this drama, the player characters, this is a good thing.

I spent a bit of time in the months before the release of Spelljammer: Adventures in Space looking over previous content to determine what factions might be fun to encounter and form relationships with. The best list I found was here: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/spelljammer-universe-franciscovega/a/a-list-of-factions-in-the-multiverse2Fphlogiston-article

You can see that previous story tellers in 2nd edition were busy populating the Universe with diverse action groups. Many of the previously published adventures have encounters with these groups, and I was very excited about adding several of these groups to my campaign.

I knew that my long term goal was for the party to discover an ancient civilization and many strange artifacts and locations, but I still wanted to present a real universe filled with interesting obstacles. After all, they are starting in a spaceport with very little functional knowledge of how daily life in the Spelljammer universe really works. Who can they work with, and who must they avoid? It is really a blank canvas for the DM.

If you start your Spelljammer campaign on a world such as Faerun, then the player characters likely have a distinct world view based on their associations with religions, races, and factions on that world. There may be Zhentarim or Harper agents in Waterdeep, but there is also a solid legal system that doesn't want any shenanigans on their watch. The player characters know much of what to expect. In a spaceport, most, if not all, of the factions they knew from Waterdeep have no representation or influence outside of the party itself. The spaceport doesn't have to be completely alien (though it could be), but the party will need allies to explain the setup.

You could present a group in need of help which could appeal to your player characters, but I chose instead to present a job offer. Even though they are starting at 5th level, the party does not have their own ship yet. So, they need to pay for passage or join a crew. I decided to have a ship looking for an 'away team'. In this case, the captain of the ship is a priestess of Celestian, so travel and discovery are her path. Scouting and searching dangerous planet locations, not so much. So, a tidy cut of all loot for the captain and crew, and we are off to discover.

My original thought was that the captain had acquired an old map or information leading to an ancient site on a distant planet. While she felt certain the ruins should be there, there was no telling what else would exist in that system or on that planet. Now, the ancient civilization discovery is supposed to be the long play, with ship combat encounters more to the front. So, I decided that the planet they were heading to in this distant wildspace was inhabited now by kobolds and orcs, but to spice it up, I added a group of slavers based on the planet's moon havesting humanoids from the planet for the The Fleshdealers faction, because at some point Illithids just have to play a part.

So. I had been putting together many resources on Roll20 for these encounters when Spelljammer 5e released. I don't have to tell you that the space combat rules I was expecting didn't materialize. With our first session less than a month away, I was scrambling to find a set of rules that worked for me. Hats off to the many creators who have put out the many various rulesets available on the internet. It quickly became apparent that any ship combat that made sense would represent a separate sub-game. A quick poll of my players showed they didn't mind what I decided, they would try it. They are very cool like that.

Ultimately, I devised a movement system based on mph speed ratings(from 2nd edition, I think) on a grid of 150 ft sized hexes (so ships could be in just one hex). So, the rule for boarding applied anytime two ships were in the same hex. All ranged attacks had to reach somewhere in the enemies hex to by useable from a range perspective. The ship the party was on has two range weapons, which I allowed the players to roll attacks for, though the ship's crew manned them.

For the most part, the players just wanted to get close enough to use their own attacks and board the enemy ship. They had no interest whatsoever in some sort of naval combat. The whole being on ships really did not resonate at all. They did enjoy defeating the enemy and taking their ship, even if the helm of that ship was corrupted by blood magic. Yeah, I felt the basic rules for spelljammer helms lacked any flavor at all. I decided that the kobolds had seized a slave galley and refitted the helm with their powerful blood magic totem. This meant they could sacrifice some of their slaver prisoners for a performance boost to speed for their ship, etc. The repurposed slave galley was in bad shape and the less-than-evil party couldn't bring themselves to sacrifice prisoners to power it. They destroyed it instead.

The takeaway from our first session was that I needed to rethink the 'pirate' concept. The episodic 'star trek' format of visiting alien worlds and discovering was still the base format, but the space battles will need some further thought. Of course, your group may be much more interested in tactical naval combat. There is no wrong answer. The point is to find something that everyone enjoys and do that.

#spelljammer #dungeon master

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