Title:Role the Dice: Asteriskos Sapphirus
Author:Travezty
Media:Tabletop RPG
Topic:Dungeons & Dragons
Genre:Adventure / Romance
URL:Chapter 1
Critiqued by BatJamags, Kane, and Silabar the Librarian
Hello once again, wardens and lunatics! I’m back with another chapter, or “session” or whatever, of this thing. It’s markedly shorter than the last couple, a fact which caused me to involuntary say “Ah, sweet burnout” out loud when I noticed. Kane, a recap, if you would?
To recap, last time, it turned out that the wererat was the good guy, Laird-Skartabel Basilius, Esquire was the bad guy, the priest and leader of the underground resistance made friends with a devil after announcing that he led the resistance to everyone who’d listen, our heroes set out to tilt at some windmills, they got distracted almost dying to demonic chickens, and then they encountered some rats in a basem*nt.
We would resume this sweeping adventure in progress if there weren’t an author’s note.
A/N:WHATS UP, MUCKACHUNGAS!?
*Sigh*
It’s Travez here with a new chapter for you all!
Kane: This revelation is appreciated; we’d never have realized elsewise.
Like the new intro guys?
But only one guy did the intro!
Silabar: I think he is missing the comma of address.
In a badfic? Never.
But also, what intr- Oh, was I supposed to be impressed by getting blasted out of my seat by GRATUITOUS YELLING again?
Took me a while to come up with something more original!
Oh, really? What did you come up with, then?
Especially considering all the nonsense words my mom developed over the years to try and make me laugh or to just flat-out confuse the heck out of me!
And so, as your revenge upon the world, you have chosen to impart this confusion upon us.
So anyway I am here today to bring you all a new chapter for Role the Dice: Asteriskos Sapphirus!
You already said– oh, crap
*Alarms blare*
*The Asylum chapter of the DRD, of whom they are the Asylum-based chapter, attempt to break into the riffing chamber, which they attempt to break into, in order to get at the chapter*
Silabar: You do recall the dragon, yes?
*The DRD cease and desist*
So it’s official, this is going to be the first Boss Battle of Role the Dice,
What, don’t you count the chickens?
and I am honestly excited to get this thing going!
And yet the promise of more game mechanics leaves me very afraid.
If the group survives this battle, they will be getting a level up
Silabar: Is the author implying the protagonists might die two chapters into the story?
Yes. He’s full of it, given his rampant munchkinry, but that is what he is implying.
and I have some neat little things planned for everything going forward!
… What does that even mean?
Silabar: Perhaps the next chapter will entail Drugo tidying his lair.
I’m not sure he has a lair.
Silabar: Don’t be ridiculous; everyone needs a lair.
So I hope you guys are interested in what is going to happen from here on out!
Kane: Your disappointment shall be immeasurable.
Though, I have a question for all of you, which of these Player Character Arcs done first:
Travezty, you are the writer. Just write what you want to write.
Also, they are not player characters because this is a f*cking story and no one is playing them.
Option 1: “The Fiendish Five” (Fiona)
I am honestly flabbergasted this is not the name of some comic book villain teamup.
(Well, technically I did find something by this name, but it’s a non-canon one-panel gag about the Sinister Six.)
… Oh, wait, this is the Sly Cooper knockoff. That’s why this sounds familiar.
Option 2: “The Four Horsem*n” (Damos)
This is the name of some comic book villains.
Option 3: “The Black Comet” (Drugo)
This should also be a comic book character…
Option 4: “The Kraken’s Fall” (Longclaw)
That’s what happens when you release the Kraken.
House Lyrandar, the faction from the Eberron setting who are inexplicably here and who Longclaw wants to destroy even though they didn’t do anything wrong, has a Kraken as their symbol. (I should stress: Eberron has a few characters and factions who are cleanly villains, a few who are cleanly heroes, but a lot more that it doesn’t really hold your hand about. Most of the Dragonmarked Houses are in that middle band, and can be shady enough to play the villains if you need it, but it’s not really self-explanatory that they’re evil. Lyrandar are usually presented as snobs, but not corrupt schemers like Cannith or outright assassins like Thuranni.)
Option 5: “In the Dark of the Night” (Ember)
Now “Dark Knight” really has possibilities as a comic character…
Option 6: “The Left Hand of the Great One” (Mina)
… Vecna?
These arcs are optional,
Is there a “no” option?
but I would be interested in seeing which of these characters you would like to get One-Fifth of their personal character arcs done,
One-fifth?!
I remind you now that the author had attempted premises like this fic numerous times previously, and this was the only one that made it to more than one chapter of actual content.
and trust me, I have some major things planned for each personal arc, but I would like to know which story you want to see get started first! If you have a Character Arc you would like to see, please leave a review, and the one with the most votes by Tuesday, May 31st will be the one we explore first as we get ready for the next big Arc after this one, if everyone survives that is!
Kane: Loathe as I am to wish for the triumph of the Abyss…
Also, going forward, I’m going to try and make it that each story arc is at least 3 Sessions Long
That adds up to ninety-three, if this opening arc is counted and assuming there’s nothing other than these “personal arcs.”
(As well as each session being at least 5,000 words,
Well, I have good n-
not including Author’s Notes),
Ah, so about a million words total, then.
Also, that would make this fic 465,000 words. Thankfully, it is very much not.
and if things go well, by the end of each Arc, the pcs should get a level up!
The max level is 20, so they’d be epic-level (at which it’s notoriously difficult to build an adequate challenge for the player characters) for almost a third of the planned fic. Honestly, I’m just impressed the author had the restraint not to make them Level 20 from the start.
And for the Personal Arcs, if the section of the arc is completed with the respective character being alive, I might have something interesting for that specific character!
Oh, good; you certainly haven’t so far.
So for the series formula, we will have it that the Arcs proceed like this, we will start with the Main Story Arc, and depending on if we are in appropriate point for it, I will flip a coin to determine whether we are doing a Character Arc or Optional Arc, which are just side-quests related to specific characters, before continuing with the Main Story, if we didn’t break off from it already.
Ah, forgive me. That’s statistically something like 360 sessions, with a wordcount of 1,800,000, with more than 83% of it spent at max level.
Also, as for the setting of the story, the majority of the story will be taking place within the countries that contain the Carpathian Mountains. So while the layout of the world will be explained later in the chapter, all you need to know is that the countries we will be exploring will be this world’s version of: The Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, and Serbia.
… You don’t know anything about those countries and just read them off the Wikipedia article on the Carpathian mountains. How close am I?
However, we will be going to Russia at some point before the end of this series for Ember’s personal arc so, as Scar would say: Be Prepared.
Whoever that is.
Anyway that is enough out of me!
More than enough.
Kane: Quite a bit more than enough.
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So that they can be cured!
Catch ya on the Flipside!NAT 20!
Hm… wouldn’t the flipside be heads or tails?
Session 2: Battle of the Ratway
Silabar: “Ratway?” Shall we take bets as to whether it is a literal highway for rats? (I only accept silver.)
Rodents of unusual mobility? I don’t think they*Eldritch Blast’d*
Everyone looks to Damos, whose smile is both terrifying and shocking to everyone around him.
Kane: Goodness, the half-fiend looks sinister. Whosoever could have predicted this?
“I’ve been waiting for this!” Damos says, smiling, “Hunting Demons is what I live for!”
That’s kind of sad.
“Zealotry…” Annamina says, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Silabar: Are you not a professional monster hunter, dear?
“You’ll get your chance, friend but right now we need to take care of these Windmills that are being built…”
Aaaand onto the tags list Don Quixote goes. Can we rack up more fandoms than X Chronicles?
“She is right, friend…” Algernon says, “If we can destroy the circle before it’s complete, then we may just be able to kill the demon before it can summon reinforcements!”
Kane: Not difficult. It is apparently a basic teleportation circle; typical shoddy Abyssal work.
Silabar: What is the difference?
“That’s the least of our problems…” Damos says.
And don’t I know it.
“Demons just don’t pop up out of nowhere… They enter this world through rifts, and if we don’t close it, then we’re all in trouble!”
Isn’t that what Algernon for Flowers over there was just saying?
Everyone looks at Damos in shock,
Kane: His command of the obvious is truly staggering.
but then he brings out the map. “It took me a bit more thinking to realize it but these Windmills aren’t being set up in a Teleportation Circle, no this is a Magic circle designed to rapidly expand an abyssal portal, after examining the fields and placements of the farms!”
Silabar: The placement of the entire farms, not only the windmills? Have they been constructed for this purpose? If so, who are the farmers? If not, how were their placements so closely guided? What distinguishes the farms which figure into the portal from the ordinary farms which have always been there? Bahamut’s breath, such second-rate scheming offends my draconic sensibilities.
Everyone is shocked, that is when doors open, revealing Father Dorian walks in, the wererats tense for a moment only to relax. “Father!”
So the priest knew where to find the wererats the whole time?
“We have a problem…!”
Kane: Shall I recite the list?
“What is it?” Algernon asks, to which Father Dorian leads them outside and points to a direction and there is an ominous orange light coming from some distance away. “What the hell?”
Kane: No, the Abyss. Pay attention.
“The Guards, over the past few hours, swept the farms, finding Abyssal Chickens and Stench Kows at each location, almost as if they were guarding the farms and the windmills.
I regret to inform you that stench kows are in fact a thing; the author has in fact managed to dig up two different obscure demonic farm animals. There’s a decent gag adventure concept in this if it were intended to be funny.
Once I confirmed with them there is a demon running amok, and how we believe it is either possessing or posing as Lord Math is,
Lord… Math?
the entire town militia decided that something needed to be done!
So, the guards just up and decided to turn against their lord on nothing but this priest’s say-so?
In fact, do we have anything more than friendly assurances about any of the plot?
Silabar: It was Damos who pointed out the magic circle.
Oh, the half-devil slaver says it checks out, cool.
Now these lights have begun to show themselves…” he looks to Algernon, who takes his human form as Father Dorian brings out noble garments. “It is time, Algernon…”
Are those more of Jonkheer-Primor Math’s clothes?
Silabar: Or does he have Algernon’s clothes, too? How could you betray Lord Basilius like this, Dorian, you cheat? Shame on you!
“Right…!” Algernon says, quickly changing into the garments as the wererats take their human forms. “Will you six stand with me?”
So, in preparation for a big fight, they’re switching from their superhuman monster hybrid forms into their human guises, and changing into their Sunday best fancy suits.
“We will!” Damos says, “This is what I was born for!”
Silabar: You were born for fighting demonic cows?
Kane: And here I took him for a misbegotten waste of even a cleric’s marginal spellcasting talent. But to his credit, the former of those descriptors would seem to have failed me.
“I will fight!” Drugo says, smiling. Mina looks at the picture in a locket around her neck, smiling.
“Well I’m not opposed to kicking some demon ass!” Mina says.
“I’m in!” Ember says, smiling.
*Bats thinks about ways to mock the fic, smiling*
*Silabar is distracted rifling through her backpack. She rattles what sound to be quite a few metallic objects around, smiling*
*Kane leafs through a spellbook, probably not smiling*
*Alarms blare, smiling*
*Smiling DRD agents show up, smiling, and they smile at the riffers, smiling*
*The riffers look back, smiling*
“I shall fight to save these people!” Longclaw says.
“I’ve always wondered what demon blood tastes like…!”
Kane: Why would anyone–
Silabar: It has an unpleasant rotten-eggs sort of quality with an acidic aftertaste, and is often very hot.
*Awkward silence*
Silabar: … Stench kows look a lot like normal cows.
*That doesn’t help*
Fiona says, to which everyone smiles in agreement,
GAH!
… Wait, in agreement with wanting to taste demon blood…?
whilst Father Dorian restores the last of Drugo’s wounds.
I’m just glad it didn’t say “hit points.”
Following the Cleric to where the Militia is gathering, and moving to the front, Algernon makes his way forward to speak to the guards.
“I am Algernon, the Son of Archdruid Athras and Lady Melody Basilius! I come before you now not to make demands, but to ask for your aid! I am the King of Rats that has been plaguing this city for tue past year, but not out of malicious intent! I and my fellows had noticed fiendish influences over the are and had been investigating the farms, as well as destroying, incentivising the farmers to destroy the infected crops they grew! Forgive me for what I had done, but it was all for the sake of the people that I do it. Right now, the demon that either possesses or is posing as my grandfather is planning to widen a portal to the Abyss that will allow through demons that are stronger than the Abyssal Chickens and Stench Kows you dealt with not more than a few hours ago! I ask that you lend me your aid in defeating this menace so that the land may recover and cleanse itself, and so that peace, civility, and happiness cna return to our people in time!” Algernon says to the men,
No wonder he’s named Algernon; I can feel myself getting dumber just listening to him.
who slowly become roused by the speech.
That’s a… way of putting that.
“ARE YOU WITH ME!?” The men cheer loudly, along with the mercenaries who willingly join him, while the wererats roar approvingly.
Silabar: Is… willingly joining him distinctive of the mercenaries? Has he conscripted the town guard? The unnamed captain will not stand for this!
Thankfully, Dorian, having put on his combat garb, and joined by his fellow clerics, all rush to the mansion with the Militia, in which, much to the surprise of everyone, despite the menacing glow, is unusually quiet, but that all stops when the moon reveals the corpses lying on the grounds.
Silabar: Which part of that was supposed to be thankful?
Kane: The quiet, I think.
“Everyone!” Father Dorian says, the clerics passing out vials, “Dowse your weapons in this holy water! If these corpses rise then this will be your best offense against them!” Every soldier does as the cleric commands and soon they charge the Mansion, spears glinting with holy water.
Kane: Even I, when confronted with an excessive number of corpses, am accustomed to thinking first of how they were slain and of the necromantic hazard only second. And I have created zombies.
Almost as predicted, the corpses rise and begin to fight the Militia, in which the Guard Captain looks to Algernon! “Milord! Go around the army and get to that demon, we’ll hold these bastards here!”
Is Algernon a lord?
“But!” Algernon begins.
Heh.
Kane: I despise you.
“Go! The sooner you close that portal, the sooner you can return!” The captain says, to which Damos puts a hand on Algernon’s shoulder, the young man nodding as the group follows Dorian around the outside of the ranks and the zombies and to the front door of the Mansion itself.
Some prior indication that they weren’t already going towards the front door would’ve been helpful.
Drugo… dashing at the door, uses himself as a battering ram, shattering the wooden door, and everyone rushes through to see the Fireplace of the Manor, nearly 60 feet in front of them, has a golden, crackling portal in it’s heart, spinning rapidly as a man, who barely looks like he is skin and bones, turns to them, smiling wickedly. “Ah… So my daughter’s ill begotten child has come to me at last!”
Seriously, even with the timeline being shorter than I initially assumed, it still took him twenty years to have this confrontation.
Kane: I do not understand your objection; that seems a rather modest time.
Silabar: Almost instantaneous, really.
Quiet, you two.
“Shut up!
10/10 comeback, would zing again.
I know what you are, Demon! Tell me, how long was this portal open?” Damos says, stepping forward.
Kane: Why would he tell you that?
“A Devil, how delicious… I will enjoy feasting on your flesh! As for how long this portal was open, well it took me years to figure out why, but that damned Archdruid had allowed himself to be burned at the stake, and it seems he knew what he was doing as he placed a spell upon the portal to prevent it from expanding, so long as the druid’s bloodline remained free of demonic influence…” the old man says,
Kane: Argh.
his body being torn apart as a 12ft tall, four armed demon rises from the literal skinsuit.
That might almost be disturbing if it had any more description than this.
“I had to sacrifice much of my power to ensure that I could find and infect you with Lycanthropy!”
Kane: How sad.
“So you did this to me!” Algernon says, transforming into his hybrid form, angry, but then he laughs. “Tell me, did my grandfather go mad before you possessed him, or did you possess him right away?”
Kane: It is not as if you shall receive a frank answer from-
“It was easy to do as soon as I forced my way through, your grandfather, though angry, was about to allow your parents to be married, and because he wasn’t expecting an attack in his own house, it wasn’t hard to do!”
Kane: Stop monologuing all the information your enemies request, you self-defeating reject from a Dwarven crime serial.
The Glabrezu says,
Kane: … My least insincere apologies, the what?
It’s a kind of dem-
Kane: I know what a Glabrezu is.
Kane: Specifically, a Glabrezu is a type of demon which is middling for its kind in raw combat power but one of the most intelligent… speaking very relatively. They possess something resembling the subtlety which has been attributed to our antagonistic aristocrat (and which has been belied by his accommodating narration in person), so the operative problem is that a Glabrezu could annihilate a party of novice adventurers with barely a thought for their presence.
Silabar: Glabrezus will traffic in power with mortal summoners as a devil will, but unlike creatures of the Nine Hells, they are not bound to even a literalist interpretation of their word.
Kane: This is why I do not like devils, either. Being organized does not call for one to forsake the venerable art of deception.
“Though now I no longer need you, or that damned circle! You may have reduced the demo ix threat down to me, but you will not find me such easy prey!
I didn’t know there was one demo, let alone nine.
And the portal is ready to proceed to stage three-“
*Kane and Silabar search through their respective spellbooks, visibly agitated*
Silabar: I am finding nothing about what these “stages” would be. You?
Kane: The information does not exist.
That is when a divine light shines down as Dorian is Praying. “A Divine Intervention! I won’t let you…!”
Glabrezu: No deus ex machinas on my watch!
The riff is running long, and this superficially resembles a cliffhanger, so I am going to cut us off before the game mechanics vomit. I’ll see you next week, wardens and lunatics.
Author: BatJamags
"JAY-mags."View all posts by BatJamags
