Killer of Romance

  This blog documents our Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. 

Our newest campaign generally follows the “Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk” book.  

I use this blog to record the sessions in narrative form. The entries are written after play, based on what I can remember happened at the table. Disclaimer: our sessions are played with beers on the table to loosen up roleplay. This tends to impact record-keeping and memory. 

My character is Roux Illomen, a Chthonic tiefling spirit medium who began as a fraud and ended up genuinely haunted. He survives on charm, bad judgment, and the ability to run when necessary. He is not a hero. He lies, avoids responsibility, and has a talent for making powerful enemies. The story is told from his perspective, with all the bias, excuses, and gallows humor that implies.

The story below is an intermediate story describing the end of DnD session four and a bit after.

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Today I died.

Not the kind of death where you lie in your bed and your heart gives out. I died in a dank cave, in the dirt and waste left by goblins. Hacked to death with a rusty cleaver.

Why am I still here, you ask?

One of my travelling companions happens to be an avatar for Helm, the Watcher. God of guardians and protectors.

She pulled me out of the embrace of the spirits that welcomed me to the Other Side. Spirits that now tell me how much they miss me.

They were not able to do this only a day ago. Something in me has awakened. A power to tear them through the Veil and bend them to my will in this world.

As I’m telling you this, I’m sitting on a horse travelling back to Phandalin. To say I’m a bit distracted is an understatement.

Luckily, my horse follows the other horses carrying my companions.

Companions. What an accurate description of what we are. Definitely not friends.

I’ve just told you about Valandra, the righteous. Half-elf. She carries herself with an infuriating, quiet grace that makes the rest of us look like mud-splattered thieves. It isn’t a performance. That is the worst part. If she found a dropped coin, she’d spend an hour looking for its owner, while I would have already spent it at the tavern. Her conscience rules her like an absolute monarch, leaving absolutely no room for the comfortable little sins the rest of us survive on.

Shame, really. She’s absolutely gorgeous, but not even interested in the slightest.

Next there is Ash’tar, the bare-knuckle fighter. Ash’tar is what happens when someone takes an elf, removes most of the poetry and all of the useful social skills, then teaches him how to punch people. He’s a simple man. See enemy. Hit enemy. See two enemies. Try to hit them simultaneously. I envy him. Life must be wonderfully uncomplicated when your biggest philosophical question is which part hurts most when you hit it.

And before I forget, there is something going on with him and shadows. Shadows hug him like an obsessed lover. It’s really strange. Shadows for him, spirits for me. Hmm.

Lastly, there is Nox… Ghoggyns. If you can believe that.

Nox is the kind of person you want nearby when someone is trying to kill you and several miles away when they aren’t. Nox has the remarkable quality of making silence feel like a threat. Most people are quiet because they have nothing to say. Nox is quiet because he expresses himself with a knife, a bow, or an unsettling stare.

I have no idea what he thinks of me. This concerns me considerably. I need to find out what Nox wants. Before he decides he wants something from me.

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The ride back to Phandalin was uneventful, which was probably for the best. After the events at the hideout, I had no desire to discover what fresh horror the road might have waiting for us.

Phandalin was as we had left it.

The haggard Sildar seemed satisfied with what we had accomplished. Once we reached the Stonehill Inn, he paid us fifty gold pieces. He took a room for himself, leaving the rest of us to enjoy the evening.

And enjoy it we did. After all, I had died earlier. It was time to celebrate life.

In my mind, the Stonehill had somehow managed to transform from a respectable inn into the sort of place where people went to drink away the memory of the day.

The food tasted wonderful.

Perhaps almost dying improves the palate. Perhaps everything tastes better when you haven’t eaten properly for a day.

Ash’tar was halfway through his meal when a farmer named Pip, sitting at the next table, mentioned goblins.

I watched the elf’s ears perk up.

“Goblins?” Ash’tar asked.

The farmer nodded. “Aye. Been causing trouble north of here.”

“How many?”

“Don’t know. But my mate Carp said they were really strange. Not regular goblins.”

“Where?”

The farmer pointed vaguely. “Elderleaf Farm.”

Ash’tar leaned forward.

“Have they attacked anyone?”

“Stolen chickens. Broken into a shed. Took some tools.”

Ash’tar nodded thoughtfully.

I looked at him.

“You do realise we just spent the day killing goblins?”

“Yes.”

“And now you’re considering going looking for more?”

“Yes.”

I shook my head.

“You elves have strange hobbies.”

Ash’tar ignored me.

He wanted details. The farmer was happy to provide them. I ate my dinner and listened to the conversation with the growing suspicion that Ash’tar would cheerfully march into another goblin-infested hole before breakfast.

Valandra, sensibly, went to bed. I watched her disappear up the stairs. 

That left the men.

I decided this was an excellent opportunity to get to know Nox. Getting to know Nox turned out to be rather like trying to interview a brick wall.

“You know, most people use this time to talk.”

Nox took a drink.

“I talk.”

“You make noises.”

He looked at me.

I smiled. He did not.

I tried again.

“So. Where are you from?”

“Underdark.”

“Yes. I had worked that much out.”

Silence.

“What’s it like?”

“Dark.”

He drank.

I drank.

I tried a different approach.

“Do all drow have such sparkling personalities?”

Nox looked at me for several seconds.

“Do all tieflings talk this much?”

I smiled.

“Only the handsome ones.”

Another silence. I decided not to ask another question.

Ash’tar eventually went to bed as well, leaving Nox and me at the table.

I looked at the elf. The elf looked at me. There was only one reasonable solution.

“A heroic duel.”

Nox tilted his head.

“Shots,” I explained. “And olives.”

He considered this for a moment. Then nodded. Finally. A language he understood.

The rules were simple enough. We put a row of small glasses on each side of the table and took turns throwing olives into them. If you landed one, the other person had to drink the shot.

The serving girl brought us the drinks. We arranged the glasses. Nox studied the table. What I did not know was that Nox had decided to cheat. And with the kind of professional competence that made me wonder whether poisoning people was a recognised drow recreational activity.

At some point, he must have poisoned my side of the table. I never noticed.

I lost. Badly.

He flipped olives into the glasses from five feet away, like the glasses were bathtubs. By the end of the game, Nox was sitting there perfectly composed while I was beginning to question the wisdom of several of my recent life choices. The elf gave me a faint smile. I suspected something was off.

Nox had apparently decided that watching me lose was sufficient entertainment, and then disappeared as well.

Eventually, the room emptied. Everyone had gone to bed.

Everyone except me. And two serving girls.

Roux meets Elsa. (AI generated)

The gnome was pleasant enough, but the dwarf caught my attention. A radiant smile and glorious blond locks and beard.

I sat a little straighter.

She noticed.

“You’re staring.”

“I’m appreciating.”

“Appreciating what?”

“Everything this fine establishment has to offer.”

She laughed. That was promising.

I bought her a drink.

She accepted.

We talked. Her name was Elsa. She was travelling to Neverwinter in the morning to visit her sister.

“So, this is your last night in Phandalin?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re leaving tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“A shame.”

She smiled.

“Is it?”

“Terrible shame.”

“You’re very dramatic.”

“I make a living being dramatic.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a medium.”

She stopped.

“A medium?”

“Yes.”

“Meaning?”

“I talk to the ancestors and lost loved ones.”

She stared at me.

I raised my glass.

“Sometimes they talk back.”

She laughed.

“That’s either very impressive or very disturbing.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

She looked at me for a moment.

Then smiled.

Things progressed. The gods had clearly decided that, after everything I had suffered that day, I deserved one small victory.

We went upstairs.

Things were looking promising. Then my stomach made a decision of its own. The poison finally introduced itself properly.

I barely made it to the chamber pot.

And there I remained for most of the night. Alone. With a belly that had apparently declared war on my arse.

Elsa fled. I couldn’t blame her.

I stared at the stars through the window and contemplated the events of the last few days.

We had fought goblins. Killed a bugbear. Hadn’t found Gundren.

I had died.

And now I was spending the night sitting on a bucket because one of my companions thought it more fun to poison me than to have a conversation.

There are moments when a man has to question the choices that brought him to where he is.

This was one of them.

I decided that tomorrow I would confront Nox.

Then my stomach cramped again.

Perhaps the day after tomorrow.