Games Logs

Rampart lies on the common-room couch with an ice pack pressed above one tusk, the bruise beneath it already gone deep purple-black. Someone has draped a blanket over him that doesn't quite reach his feet. Alternate KFC finds him there. "Looks like somebody had an adventure," she says, and her tone tries for light and lands somewhere else entirely. "I didn't want to bother you, hon," Rampart says. "I tried sparring with Diro instead. It didn't work out." A beat. "It was two

The road to Tser Falls has proven dangerous. From out of the forest emerges a familiar face, its features twisted now with rage and hatred. Sheriff. He was taken by the hags in exchange for passage along the road, back when they carried Ireena toward Ravenloft. Dag ducks, opened by one of Morgantha’s spells and bleeding freely. Sheriff’s blade arcs toward him, and again — whatever the hags have done to him in his time with them, they have granted him no gift for swordplay.

The party is at the casino, where alternate KFC's and Rampart's wedding has apparently obligated the entire hex to serve as witnesses. Debbie sees the whole thing as a money-making opportunity. "But the House always wins!" alternate KFC points out. "Except when it doesn't," counters Debbie, and unspools her idea to the class valedictorian. Alternate KFC nods and settles into the chair beside her, hoping to play enough hands to guarantee a big win. The card-counting fails s

The road to Berez has turned out to be far more treacherous than anyone bargained for. Mist clings low over the evergreens, and the stench arrives before the creatures do — a thick, rotting sweetness that coats the back of the throat. Two ghasts, gravecallers both, have cornered the party mid-track, their green-grey flesh peeling in strips, their claws black with old blood. In the middle of the chaos, a figure steps quietly from the tree line, unnoticed by all but the trees

The Fire Jolt Café fills its last chairs as Debbie takes her final bow. The set has gone well — well enough that Quintelius corners her before she's finished packing up her gear and offers her a touring slot on the spot. A replacement spot until their regular guitar player can sort out his romantic entanglements. It is a convenient offer. This timeline's Debbie already owns the bus. There is a wedding coming between Rampart and this timeline's KFC. In the stretch of time

The last of the wolves goes down in a wash of fire, Crystal and Abi's spells silencing the pack's howls. Smoke curls off scorched fur and drifts low across the frost-stiffened grass near the windmill, and for a moment nobody speaks — just the tick of embers cooling and the distant creak of the mill's broken sails turning in the wind. They take stock. Packs are checked, blades wiped clean, potions counted against what's left of the road ahead. They set out on a curiously un

On the grounds of Maladomini’s Carnival Eternal, there is tension between the friends and a group of violent clowns. But as quickly as they descended, the clowns are gone — folded back into the crowd like a trick of the light. They leave only chalk dust settling in the churned mud and the faint, retreating jingle of bells. The friends stand a moment, catching their breath, before the Carnival Eternal reasserts itself around them: calliope music, the tang of sulfur-sweet ca

Dawn breaks over Strixhaven, and KFC is smuggling a twelve-foot shambling mound down five flights of spiral staircase underneath a carpet. This is, she will insist to anyone who asks, a school project. Quintilius asks. He is coming up the stairs after an all-night band practice, guitar case flattened against the wall, and he wants to know why the project smells like something decomposing. KFC explains that it is a project *about* how magical creatures decompose, which is the

The safe house reeks of blood and lamp oil. Bayleaf hauls himself over the table wedged across the hallway, his own blood slicking the wood beneath his hands. Krelldutt is down. Torgan is down. Somewhere behind a splintered door, Viktor lies dying, and Dag has not yet returned from Vallaki with help. The paladin does not know if help is coming at all. The Vistani lieutenant snarls threats at Violet Robin, who has fought his way back into the hallway, bleeding badly and ref

Morning light struggles through the shutters of the Blue Water Inn, catching the dust motes above tables still scarred from the werewolf assault. The companions gather in the main room, battle-worn but resolute, and lay out their plan to Urwin Martikov: back to the old windmill, to hunt down the last of the night hags. Urwin listens, wiping the same tankard he’s been wiping for the better part of ten minutes. “You’re going back there,” he says. It isn’t quite a question. “We

The bloated devil calling itself Gratchis looms over the battered rogue, robes stiff as sheet metal, a tall orange feather quill coiled at the ready above one pudgy hand. "On the authority vested by the Grace of his Excellent Excellency, Lord Baalzebub, on behalf of the Kingdom of Maladomini," the amnizu intones, "you are required to present Fissure Crossing Permit J54-T, completed in triplicate and signed by the responsible party or parties."

In the fissure between Malbolge and Maladomini, the truck — reinflated, humming, improbably intact — sits balanced on a narrow ledge outside a crumbling structure. It hovers on its magical horseshoes, a fortunate circumstance given the decrepit state of the scaffolding suspended high above the arid Maladominian valley below. Two of the party were stone, but have been relieved of the condition thanks to their friend Thunk, the cleric, who has restored them. One other, howev

"Titania, do you have any answers? Where exactly have you been? You've been gone for days. I do think I'm owed answers." The Votress stands in the doorway of the Hex, glaring at a gawping Titania. They regard one another for a moment. Then the Votress's attention finds Squid. "Ayan, come say hello to your other mother!" She gestures the child toward her. Squid, wide-eyed, shakes their head. "Ayan! Come here and say hello!" As Squid stands, eyes brimming, a small chi

Orbart is difficult to miss: a minotaur, seven feet and eight inches of dense muscle, sharpened horn and quiet reserve, wearing a chainmail shirt with a slight hood and boots that have given way at the toe. He carries an amulet bearing a strange symbol, which he uses to channel his magic, and he has his own moral code, arrived at independent of his god. He has been in Vallaki for two months, renting a room from a widow who would not have him if extreme old age had not dimmed

The wagon smells of old wine and worry. And it is making Shifty feel terribly unwell. The next chapter of their adventure has started unpleasantly for him. It is early morning when the party pulls away from the vineyard and the Barovian mist sits low and cold across the road. Shifty is in a deeply pitiable state. He sits hunched against the wagon's side rail, scales the grey-green of pitted copper, looking every inch like something a cat dragged in. The fresh air does not

The cavernous silence of the maze is punctuated by the echoing scuff of boots. The sounds bounce back to their ears, making it impossible to tell from which direction the noises come, despite the evidence of the listener's eyes. Then suddenly, from somewhere — perhaps around the next corner, perhaps from behind them, or perhaps in no place at all — there is maniacal laughter that belongs to no one present. There is also quiet weeping, a child's, high and inconsolable, cutt

The smoldering ruins of the tree-blight are still sending thin threads of smoke into the grey Barovian sky as the party descends Yester Hill. The ground is soft underfoot, churned by the night's violence, and the air smells of char and wet earth. Somewhere on the slope, Biblo whistles to himself. Nike spots them first — hoof prints pressed into the mud at the path's edge, the ground around each one singed dark. Four-legged, large, and burning. Crystal's eyes narrow. She know

The cave beneath the Gulthias Tree smells of wet stone and worse things. Two warrior druids are working through the party with methodical patience, spears leveled now rather than thrown. A druid at the back holds concentration on an Entangle spell, and the vines have made the tunnel floor nearly impassable. The second druid — the one Krelldutt has been trying to reason with — shows no sign of being moved by anything short of catastrophe. Catastrophe, as it happens, is clos

The Hag’s Arms is a faded memory far behind them. The truck pulls up to the wall which contains a closed gate. The maze lies beyond. They rest before entering. This is the sensible decision, the adult decision, the decision that every resource management framework and dungeoneering manual would endorse. It is also, in Malbolge, something of a gamble. Night in the sixth layer of Hell is not restful. The hags are gone from their tavern— evicted from their own establishment

“Fall out” would definitely describe what is happening. The truck is falling out of the sky of Malbolge. That detail is important. There is no dramatic pause, no moment of collective realization — the truck simply is in freefall, forty feet above the tavern roof, because this is where Kiki’s spell has placed it. The mapach has the wheel. Vali rides shotgun. Whatever conversation they were having before this moment is now entirely irrelevant. Below, where Kiki cannot see, th