Tag: d&d

Doctors are great, it’s the rest of the health care system that needs to be guillotined.

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant. Reshelving Squad Upsilon is called into the boss’s office to find out that Gladys’s minions got busted swiping all the books from the secret crocodile library and not storing them properly. Since the squad didn’t notify anyone, their punishment is to take the books to the Island of Evil Books that Shoggoth Bob came from at the beginning of the campaign. They do get to use Mesoluna’s portable hole to carry the books, at least. Despite the books technically being in a different dimension, though, they get spotted on the path across the bottomless abyss by a manifestation of eyes formed by books placed on shelves on a minor islet, and attacked by flying books and a horrible flaming book golem. Despite Grumman almost being flung to his death, they defeat the minions of whatever it is, and make it to the island where they begin chaining up the worst books and shelving the others. While they are fashioning Library Standard Containment Podiums, a similar manifestation of eyes occurs in the evil books already there, complains about Godwin not having stopped the squad, and makes one of the books in the stack reveal that is actually a draconic frog, or maybe a batrachian dragon. Whatever it is, it swallows Thaïs, who only barely manages to teleport out when it opens its mouth later, leaps about the island, stinks up the place something awful, and absorbs a lot of abuse from the squad. However, there’s only one of it, and librarians can be very abusive, so the second or third time someone tries to banish it to another plane, it fails its save and uses its legendary save power to not come back. We leave our junior librarians on the Island of Evil Books in a frightful state, but surely nothing will happen before they can go home and get cleaned up, right? Right?

Read (manga): The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor vol 4 (Anko Yuzu, Sarasa Nagase, Mitsuya Fuji) Jill is infiltrating the dragon empire military for not-entirely-clear reasons.

Written (catgirl): 135.

I presume US National, so imported pandas.

Jus went to Davis for a robotics competition, and her team got second place! YAAAAYYYY JUS!

VTA management has not gotten their act together since yesterday, so I walked to gaming. Fortunately, it was not raining. The app for that said it would take 1:34 to walk there, and I felt like I have been getting slower since I stopped leaving my apartment, and then since I got Covid, so I allowed two hours. It actually took me somewhere between 1:05 and 1:10 to get there, which was very surprising to everyone except Dave.

On the way back, I walked with Dave, which was faster walking but we deviated from the app route to see other streets in Northwestern San Jose so it took a little longer.

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant: After a night of crocodile dreams that are surely not important, the Reshelving Squad decide to backtrack the purple worm to see what else might pop out of that hole to annoy their kobold friends. After numerous ups and downs, and many dents shaped like bullywug helmets, they find a huge cavern with a literally Cyclopean ruined city. All the treasure has been taken, but whoever was there before kindly left the swarms of stirges and brains-with-legs in place. This is annoying, but the real problem is that the last brain-with-legs ran off toward the exit with a definite Timmy-fell-down-the-well vibe. (It’s a brain with legs, all it has is vibes.) When Lilli scries out the area with sketchy divine magic, she spots some mind flayers, which nobody likes. Since the brain-legger didn’t deliver its message, they don’t seem to be coming into the cyclopean ruins, and nobody wants to pester them. Unfortunately, while the Reshelving Squad is finding the dead end, the mind flayers do advance, and set up for an ambush at the tunnel entrance. Since sneaking past is obviously not going to work, even not counting Grumman and his Steam Colossus, they decide to have Grim teleport to flank them, carrying Thaïs to a position where she can freeze all three of them. Of course the mind flayers knew to the minute when Lilli’s scrying magic would give out, and changed position, so they and their attack brains are able to counterattack more effectively than planned, but it’s not enough to save them.

Read (novella): The Orb of Cairado (Katherine Addison): Also in the world of The Goblin Emperor, soon after the Big Airship Crash, but it’s a sketchy academic solving murders and looking for lost treasure.

Read (manga): Call the Name of the Night vol 3 (Tama Mitsuboshi): Cursed Girl has some more magical adventures and develops a little more self-confidence when it could involve a book signing.

Written (catgirl): 165.

This day is for both Sage and Nightvale! Also Marmalade and Ghirardelli and Aspen and Dani and Benny.

Played (D&D5.5E): Librarians Errant. While their boss and his love nemesis confer over the disposition of volume III and other vital matters, Reshelving Squad Upsilon is accosted by a message from Crimefrosh Tokda Snir. The kobold refuge is under attack, and Novo Reek alone has been able to return to the upper world to seek assistance! With no orders to the contrary from Martin, the squad sets out for the upper margins of the Underdark. Everything goes well until they come across the halfling scout who led them into traps earlier pretending to look for a secret door. Proving once again that none of them has ever majored in Common Sense, they chase him into a pit trap full of ochre jelly with bonus otyugh, which Thaïs resolves by filling it with cryogenic mist, and then into a cave inhabited by a cloaker and some tentacle slugs, which is a little trickier to get through. However, one grick is banished and the halfling exits stage left pursued by a hound of ill omen, and the squad finally arrives in the kobolds’ backup village. The first thing they see is the halfling sauntering across the cavern, and the second is thirteen bullywugs riding a purple worm. It looks bad for a moment, but Thaïs banishes the worm, the bullywugs are taken prisoner, and everyone sets up for some ultraviolence when the worm is freed from its dimensional prison. It still swallows Flint, who sacrifices himself to save Lilli, and the squad is almost entirely out of magic by the end, but the session ends with a massive worm BBQ party.

Read (manga): My Girlfriend’s Not Here Today vol 3 (Kiyoko Iwami): Cheating is as good a reason for smut as any! Also none of these girls is any good at communication, because teenagers.

Written (catgirl): 263.

Also National Pork Rind Appreciation Day, which sadly has more relevance to my life. Where did I go wrong?

Played (D&D5E): Librarians Errant: The room that Grim and Thaïs disappeared into seems dark and quiet… too quiet. When the other reshelvers venture in, they find that the entire sanctuary has been covered by Mordenkainen’s nose exclusion zone to hide the extremely loud and obvious fight going on. Their teammates and Glady’s three henchmen are facing off against a horde of cymbal-banging clockwork crocomonkeys and a giant steam-powered robot crocodile, with the aid of a summoned water elemental! Things immediately get even worse as the Mechacroc blasts Mesoluna with a gout of steam and he loses control of the elemental, but somehow, despite steam and cymbal-banging and gigantic metal teeth and more steam, so much steam, the robots are put down and the contents of the secret temple library can be loaded into the extradimensional bookmobile and taken away for Martin and Gladys to haggle over. The wreckage of the nave and sanctuary are even cleaned up, so hopefully it will be some time before the hypothesized body-swapper figures out exactly what happened and who to come after.

Read (manga): Yakuza Reincarnation vol 9 (Hiroki Miyashita, Takeshi Natsuhara): Huh, looks like the isekai protagonist really is there to save the world!

Written (game design): 339, but mostly questions and not answers.

I absolutely do not understand quantum chromodynamics, but I hear it’s very important.

Despite confusion due to email failures, we did gather for food and gaming today.

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant. Reshelving Squad Upsilon now knows where they want to go, they just need a plan to get there. Several possibilities are discussed, but before implementing any of them, they decide to scout out the sewers for a way into the Temple of Sobek. Although no crocodiles have been seen in the temple for years, there is at least one large one in the sewers beneath, which chomps Grim and Thaïs good before being driven off; nevertheless, they persist in looking for more trouble. There is a manhole into the temple compound, all locks or traps long gone, so with their usual discipline and professionalism, the squad abandon the scouting mission in favor of rushing toward the book. The courtyard clears out while Grumman is being hex-wrenched out of his steam armor, so they make it all the way to the outer hall before running into anybody. There, a colorful bullywug in a revealing harness introduces himself at length as Inigo Frogtoya and declares his vendetta against Grumman for disrespecting the team’s recurring nemesis, Admiral Bigbugs. An extremely swashbuckling and fairly sticky battle ensues, during which Grim disappears to look for the third volume, but although it’s not easy, the rest of the squad manages to defeat Señor Frogtoya and he surrenders with honor. After getting frightened, Thaïs fled into the next room after Grim, but they haven’t come back with the book…

Read (manga): Witch Hat Atelier vol 13 (Kamome Shirahama): Continuing the arc with the city and the disaster and the Brimmed Caps and the ethics of magic that affects people.

Written: Not sure how to count when part of the changes are reorg because my script can’t separate that out, but I’ll call it 223.

Librarians Errant, shrunk, amnesia volume 3, silverfish, mice, roomba banishment

Wait, are birds real after all? I wish the Internet would make up its mind!

Played: Librarians Errant. Reshelving Squad Upsilon find themselves in a mysterious, probably artificial landscape of cyclopean edifices. Why are they there? No time to figure out, exceptionally loathsome arthropods are attacking! From the way the squished bugs flutter down lightly, Thaïs deduces that the squad is very small, rather than the silverfish being very large, but trying to remember why and how results in visions of ink and origami, and San loss. Lili divines that they are there for the third volume of The Magical Education, and also that they have letters folded into(?) their heads. Rearranging themselves to spell out words does produce magical effects, but doesn’t get them any closer to the book, so they explore the regular way. They are in a library off a crocodile-themed temple, so probably in the temple of Sobek, where the possession issue is centered. At 1/60th scale, they can’t easily check the books on the shelves, but a magical tome wouldn’t be in the accessible library anyway. Checking around the baseboards, they find mice, but also a magically-warded secret door, and beyond it, a much smaller library guarded by an automatic dust-sucker that wouldn’t even come up to their ankles if they were full size, but now can swallow Grumman whole and carry him to another plane when banished, Fortunately its insides are not constructed to stand up to a determined engineer with a steam armor maintenance kit, and it returns inoperable. And, on an upper shelf, the third volume! The squad manages to knock it to the floor by spelling LEVER, but LARGE only breaks the spell and returns them to their bodies in the library. Still, now they know where the final volume is.

Read: The Summer You Were There vol 2 (Yuama): More feelings, and also popular girl knows depressed girl’s dark distressing history. Can she overcome it?

Read: The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook (Matt Dinniman): Turns out Carl isn’t the first to think, “fuck this entire system”, and they probably didn’t even have an evil subway system to figure out at the same time.

Written: 117. Writing a second draft was like pulling teeth, so I switched to writing in a summary mode, about one paragraph per scene. Not sure if this is better or worse, in either the long or short term.

Originally for teenage ninja turtles, but I’m sure anybody with a genome can get in on the action.

Since the bus I take to gaming is always late, I tried taking the one before that, which of course was right on time, but being early gave me a chance to get a sandwich before going to eat 95849 servings of gaming munchies.

Played: Librarians Errant. Reshelving Squad Upsilon goes to find Kars Hevel and ask him about Volume 3 (and maybe very cautiously allude to the possibility that he is a Masked Lord), but the kobold village has migrated to the depths, leaving only a few guards to pretend to build defenses. They’ll send word to the depths, but in the meantime, the squad decides to poke around the sewers like adventurers even though they have day jobs. They do find the lair of someone (probably a hobbit halfling based on the gourmet trail rations) who has obviously been keeping an eye on the kobolds, but he legitimately outwits them and escapes, so they continue on and find a soggy fungus-filled cave. Some of the fungi scream, some are infested with giant centipedes, the corridor has a trapper that falls on Grim, and the stagnant pool is full of froghemoth, so it’s an exciting few rounds, but although Thaïs can’t banish the froghemoth, she can electrocute the Flint out of it, and blast the trapper off of Lili before it crawls away to digest her, and then everyone can gather up a surprising amount of loot. Now they understand why people become adventurers! However, they still have a day job, so they go back up to finish tracking down Gladys’s Musketeers and offer them the deal of Volume 2 in exchange for a copy of Volume 1. This isn’t hard, as musketeers are known for frequenting pawnshops, of which there are a finite number, but before the Reshelving Squad can offer the deal, the Musketeers offer the real Volume 1 in exchange for a copy of Volume 2. Huh.

Written: I forgot to count up, but apparently today and tomorrow are 212 total, so call it 106.

Definitely a good day for ice cream, at least in the Northern hemisphere!

Played: Librarians Errant. After missing two sessions because I was first full of Covid and then full of hubris, we are back to Jeremy’s game. Tracking down books, fights with summoned cow monsters, kobold crime lords, the usual. Thaïs got uglified which was extremely mortifying, but not beyond the power of remove curse to fix, fortunately. Now the team has a case that looks like possession to stick their noses into, so they have to take presents to a lich who was involved in magic jar research and find out who might be responsible. Surely this will be a simple and safe trip with no complications.

Read: I Ran Away To Evil vol 1 (Mystic Neptune): A heroic princess (raised by quite abusive parents) goes to die trying to defeat the Dark Lord but she never gets around to fighting him because they’re too busy getting very wholesome crushes on each other and also administering his socialist paradise. Since they have heard of the birds and bees but never seen any, they are pretty awkward but adorable. Also there’s some plot stuff with her former kingdom trying to invade the Dark Enchanted Forest and recapture her. LitRPG, but the genre has reached the point where they don’t have to explain much, and blushing has no level requirements.

Written: 145. That’s not how to write either.

Just because you don’t know what it is doesn’t make an alien!

Did some work, had a Google meet with the team and the guy who is joining soon. He seems okay. Maybe too gung-ho, he might make me look bad, but I don’t need help with that.

Last day of work, I kept the rest of the week as vacation despite the lack of Roseville. Hopefully I will test negative soon so I can get some of the errands I’ve been putting off done. I did manage to throw out a couple of piles of stuff that I haven’t touched since I moved in, although there’s still so much to go.

Read: I’m In Love With The Villainess vol 1-3 (Aonoshimo, Inori, Hanagata): Modern person isekai’d into their favorite otome game scorns all the male love interests because she likes the snooty rival character much better (in a masochistic sort of way). I read the first two of this back when, but did not remember much of what happened when I got volumes 3-6. Now I remember!

Played: D&D5e. We finally started Kelsey’s adventure (I think it’s a module, but I have not looked so no spoilers), albeit without Vivian. Quin the half-elven bard/rogue Harper aspirant, Puck the fairy cleric/rogue trickster, and Opal the earth genasi rune knight successfully infiltrated the dungeon and beat the snot out of some horrible badger-hyena monsters, because you can do that when you’re 9th level.

Written: 213. Good thing I don’t have to get up tomorrow.

As opposed to yesterday, which was just my personal cat day!

The cats are still very feline. Sage is remarkably energetic for a cat who has never had a single morsel of food in her entire life, ever, although after eating an entire cat of wet food she cuddled in my arms for an extended period. Nightvale jumped onto Marith’s shoulders when she came to visit, which I can only interpret as a sign of approval.

Played: Librarians Errant. After being manipulated into alarming situations by professors and/or sororities the library had offended, and finding that the eldritch tentacles unleashed by Flint and Shia in the first episode had taken to nibbling on the town’s supply of fine confections, our librarians junior library staff head back to Koboldtown only to find it being bullied by bullywugs! There’s a big fight, but the important parts are that Flint leaps down from the rooftop and chops the bullywug leader right in half, and Lily gets swallowed by a giant frog and carried off. Once they track her down, there’s another fight, but the leader of the bullywugs escapes with the book that was the entire reason they came down here. Thaïs only used one of her spell slots, so this was obviously a less strenuous adventure than last time, no matter what the other characters say.

Watched: Helluva Boss 2.7: Another Fizzarolli episode, so sadly lacking in Loona or Millie, but otherwise good. Because seriously, fuck that guy!

Written: FAIL. There were cats that needed snuggles! But I did get caught up here and even figured out how to post pictures, so apparently the cats are less distracting.

After missing about a million sessions, we finally had Alternate Sunday Gaming and started Librarians Errant. After being assigned to get overdue books back from students and causing pretty much a riot (there were also exploding gophers involved), we got dragged into the search for a lost set of books, almost eaten by giant rants, ditched in the sewers with teenaged kobolds, almost eaten by giant frogs, and fed hot chocolate by the kobolds. There were two fights, Thaïs had two spell slots to cast thunderwave, it worked out perfectly. Surely next session will go just as well.

I was accosted by an antivaxxer at the bus stop. I told her she’s insane, but we parted without violence. (Should I have been nicer? I dunno, she was trying to kill me with covid.)

Written: FAIL.

They’re an important source of protein for bats!

Finally managed to produce a medical sample and get it to UPS. Now I can stop worrying about getting it done and worry about the results!

UPS was so efficient that I did not have to wait for a next bus and was early to gaming, but that’s okay (I say as the person not hosting). It was a special gaming session, though, because after approximately 90745934 years, Chrisber has gaming with us again! Also he brought his offspring, Teo. Chrisber has a mustache now, and a lot of white in his hair, but he is still very much Chrisber. I don’t know Teo well yet, but he seems okay for a, you know, young person.

I didn’t have any brilliant ideas, and Dave’s idea did not garner sufficient support, so Jeremy is running D&D5 again (sigh). We are playing random university bozos who are about to be recruited into the Librarians Errant where we will track down dangerous, rare, or overdue books. My character is the result of an ethical experiment that turned her into a shadow magic sorcerer, so once again I am the only one without Charisma as a dump stat.

Written: FAIL. Apparently making up one (1) D&D character uses all my creativity for the day. I definitely blame capitalism for this.

Jeremy and Rachel have a new small curly dog, who was initially very mistrustful but I won him over by a combination of not eating him and also giving him scritches. Doge victory!

Played: Grand finale of Edie’s D&D game before she and Hazel go off to college and find newer, better gamers instead of ones that tell the same jokes. We defeated the big enemy, did not set the entire world on fire (sorry Tobinel!), and ended on what I’m told is an Agents of SHIELD reference. Maybe we’ll pick back up next summer, but apparently now Dave is going to run Lancer.

Read: Crush (Svetlana Chmakova): Sequel to Awkward and Brave, following the tribulations of yet another 8th-grader seen in previous volumes. This is the one about crushes and romance and dating, but also mostly about friends and jerks and bullying and internet security and not knowing what to do about life.

Words: Check.

It is too hot out.

Played: Edie’s D&D game, in Edie’s new house. The new place is about 900% less annoying to get to, and probably also about 900% larger. It has the same combined living room-dining room-kitchen with island as the Petterson’s new place, so it has a very familiar vibe despite being full of boxes. Also it was full of gaming munchies and ridiculous refrigerators and gamers (but not Rue, they were at camp). After a lot of house talk from the grownups, we played what turns out to be the penultimate episode of Edie’s game, in which our attempts to learn the gnolls’ side of the story are in vain and we just have to murder them. We did find a larger camp, with what looks like a gang boss of gang bosses of gnolls, so probably that will be the climactic fight of the campaign.

Words: Check, although the way I’m counting words for editing is not very rigorous.

Played: Edie’s D&D game. Jeremy and Rachel were doing something non-gaming-related, but Edie is perfectly capable of feeding gamers on her own and also sending creepy-crawlies to ambush PCs just because they’re completely incapable of remaining quiet when interesting mushrooms and flammable deadwood are around. We also found the gnolls that are oppressing our new friends the thri-kreen, and they don’t seem to have their own side of the story to tell unless you count grunting and howling, so I guess we need to deal harshly with them. We did get a prisoner, at least, so we can interrogate it next session, which will be at the new Gollub place much closer to Dave and I. In fact, after going to Palo Alto for gaming for like twenty years, I think this was the last time we will make that trek. The end of an era!

Read: The Tale of the Outcasts vol 1 (Makoto Hoshino): A mostly-invisible demon and an exploited urchin girl become friends in Victorian England.

Words: FAIL. What kind of excuse is “used up all energy going to gaming in Palo Alto” anyway?

Today was full of walking in the excessive heat, but at least I got to play D&D? This was the second session of Edie’s summer campaign, and we finally met the local sophonts, who want to get us involved in their war against the other local sophonts. This is bound to go well. Also we fought some ugly monsters, which would have worked better if I had remembered my character takes only half damage from being clobbered/stabbed/sliced while hopped up on combat drugs.New theory: I don’t like D&D not because of the binary resolution or stat-centricness, but because I’m not smart enough to play it. Anyway, after walking back in the heat, I walked around some more trying to grocery shop and get chicken strips for dinner, and then was a useless melted lump for the entire evening.

Words: check.