Dungeons and Dragons – Curse of Innistrahd Episode 22

Dressed in red and black finery the cost of multiple men’s lives, Strephan Maurer idly sips at a goblet of wine and eyes the sky with a placid face. The peace was a practiced neutrality, holding back a steady tension with gossamer and decorum. He was ruminating. Ruminating on life. On death. And on his deep and utter boredom. Things were supposed to get exciting, another set of slayers and warriors, users of magic and prayer stepping into his valley. His drummed a set of manicured nails across the polished wood of his arm rest, each beat like that of his languid heart.

They had her. Tatyana, his soulmate trapped in the breast of another. His brow furrowed as he still stared toward the graying cotton of the clouded sky. He didn’t mind waiting for her, but the game had been patient. And like everywhere else he had set up the pieces. And then they came in, upturning the board as they didn’t even know the game was being played. Maurer lowered his golden eyes to stare across the western gate of the estate, the storms clearing to simple rain on the other side of the walls, hills and forest blocking his eyes but not his vision.

It had been long enough coming. He hoped they would play along, stumbling haphazardly into the affairs and secrets brewing in Pallas. The neonates he smuggled in. The efforts of Lady Wachter. The cultivated paranoia and obsession of Inquisitor Seeta. But alas, they were simply a distraction. And waiting just to show off, well… It seemed desperate. As the first line of smoke came up from the direction of the forest nestled town, Maurer smiled a gentle tired smile. “Rahadin,” he said clearly to the darkness beside him, “I think it’s time we paid them a visit.”

Side Chatter

MUSIC CREDITS:

Dark Walk Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

PLAYERS

• James – Conrad Starkherz – Paladin: An inquisitor of the Avacynian church, dedicated to the destruction of evil by all available means. His fighting skills are weathered by his age, but he has come to rely on his holy powers to protect him from both his foes and the memories of his past.
• Susan – Elyria – Druid: A young lady who made her home in the terrifying forest of the Ulvenwald. She is a thin girl of medium height with wild ginger curls all over her head. The first things noticed are always her red hair and her large green eyes. She was a young girl from Kessig who found she had fantastical abilities fled to live in nature when some disastrous things happened. She has fantastical powers that can change nature, but these powers cannot change her past.
• Axe – Niccolo Argenti – Rogue: A former Midnight Duelist, sworn to protect the streets of his home city of Nephalia from vampires and corpse-traders. After his brother Jacomo died in service of the Church of Avacyn, he became disillusioned and forsook his duties, becoming an apostate and blade for hire. Thirty-five years old, he’s managed to live to what passes for middle age on the blighted plane of Innistrad with the sharpness of his wits and the speed of his blade.
• Kevin – Faustus Pent – Wizard: University educated among the Ivory Towers of Nephalia, Faustus Pent made a career of creating clockwork devices for the well-off, from toys to complicated weaponry. Betrothed to Inquisitor Arcelia Bright, his life took a terrible turn when she led an ill-fated raid against Strefan Maurer two years ago. On learning the news, he immediately closed his shop and devoted himself to single-minded study of battle magic.  Now, spellbook and strange magics in tow, he has finally made his way to Stensia to find the lost pieces of a life denied to him…
• Travis – Grove Hecker – Ranger: Folk hero of Kessig. Grove is known for solving mysterious investigations and surviving deadly monsters attacks around the province . His last investigation ended with him befriending a wolf mongrel, Yew, and being asked politely to leave Kessig. His gruff demeanor and combat prowess make him a fantastic huntsman but his years in the Ulvenwald have made him a terrible people person. With his unusual new partner Yew, Grove left Kessig to challenge the Somberwald of Stensia.
• Josh – Grimhild – Fighter: A taciturn monster hunter from the grim mountains of Stensia. A pale skinned, fair haired, and athletically muscular woman with a permanent scowl. With an obscured past and a chip on her shoulder she hunts many of the fiends of the dark. Though her relationship with the church and its angels is strained at best, she has become a stalwart, if grim, defender of the people they forgot.

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