An elaborate feast on a table showing meats and drink.

"Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
The Bleak and The Pearl, Part 24. Feasting on Darkness

Doug's Commentary
Credits
Open "Threads," Notes, Situations, and Complications

Previously, on The Bleak + The Pearl

Gryffin Grunkheart has lead the "Lighthouse 6" to the Andrik Islands north of The Bleak. The goal is to find the Harcuram Mantle, one of the activators for the fuelstones deep beneath Grunce. His group of new adventurers are composed of himself, four members of the once great houses of Grunce, and a strange Chelonian who has been Bleak touched from birth. In the icy caves they fought undead, wildlife, and saved bandits. Now, they are preparing to go back inside.

About The Bleak + The Pearl

The once great empire of Barthus has fallen as a corrupting force called The Bleak spreads from shore to shore. Pockets of humanity remain, and the greatest of these is the city of Grunce, long protected these three centuries by a Lighthouse designed to absorb The Bleak and use its own energy against it. However, the Lighthouse is fading. A group of four heroes risk life and sanity going further and further into the Bleak-ravaged Barthus to solve the mystery of ancient technology and stop The Bleak once and for all.

Joining them (in the second season) is a group of six new heroes who trying to help to complete the fuelstones to power the Lighthouse. These heroes represent the great houses that originally started the light all those years ago. Only, the great houses are not what they once were and the Lighthouse Six are little more than burnouts and vagabonds.

Content Warning: Fantasy levels of violence. Some strong moments of body horror. Some drinking. Some smoking. Language pretty tame but it's a possibility. Moslty the violence and the weird horror, really.

This post is in the standard Doug Alone post style. See Anatomy of a Post for more details.

Attribution for the tools and materials used—including the splash art—can be found in the Credits below along with some details.

The Bleak and The Pearl, Part 24. Feasting on Darkness

Making Camp

To start this one off, we'll do a little "raw play" style to get things back up to speed. At the end of Day 2, the team had returned to The Crossbow and unloaded treasure [which I need to go back and take better notes about, didn't think this would six months later]. According to Cursed Scroll #3, ships have 10 gear slots per passenger and as many passengers as hitpoints. The Crossbow is a galleon class ship carrying a lot of Grunkheart and Marius types [well, at least their crews]. Then in Letters from the Dark, Volume 6: Scallywags Chris Powell writes that that "any ship larger than longboat" can effectively carry all the gear a crew would need. I'll blend this together to say that the Marius ship has been very well stocked and if they get back to that, then essentially any gear from the standard Shadowdark crawling kit (see page 36) can be had and there are some additional weapons and armor that I might roll to double check at Advantage, normal, or Disadvantage depending on rarity. Ladies Marius and Grunkheart will be fussy if the charges rack up too high, so gathering stuff on their own will be part of the "test run" of this mission.

That being said, everyone will get up to 3 torches, up to 20 arrows, and up to 3 rations to refill before diving back in.

I will generally skip the initial re-entry into the caves. We'll say it takes one torch but that area is pretty well explored by this point [they have made the trip in and out three times now]. Their initial goal is to the beach they found near the end of their last foray into the caves [near the burial boat] (See Cursed Scroll #3 and "Hoard of the Sea Wolf King [SWK]" rooms 16 ("Decayed Docks") and 19 ("Longboat Hold") for descriptions of these areas). They will set up a campsite here with a small chest, a fire, and some basic bedrolls and such. They will not be leaving any sort of guard but they will stash the stuff in a way it is not immediately obvious. We'll say the chest has 6xtorches, 15xrations, and some bandages and bedrolls.

Now, can they possibly carry their rowboat from the river they followed in to this beach? [SoloDark oracle test [SoD]] → 12, Yes.

Let's roll a d6 for { 1/4 | 1/3 | 1/2 } speed → 1/4 speed. It's pretty stout and going will be slow. The landing spot is slightly to the west of Room 17 ("Longboat Hold"). That is around 130'. We'll say it takes them a full 10 rounds [-1 Torch, basically]. It will obviously do the same on the way out so let's hope they aren't being stalked or attacked.

That triggers three wandering monster checks. All were negative.

They will moor the boat near the decaying docks.

We'll jump back in on Round 11 [by the light of the campfire].

Setting the Scene, e24s2.

Gryffin's first priority will be establishing something of a safe place. From the place on the beach [roughly SWK Room 16] they have three points of interest unexplored. To the north is Room 18 ("Hall of Feasting"). To the south and south-east is a large underground lake which Gryffin wants to explore [he always prioritizes going to the right and I'm sticking with that for this cave]. To the east is Room 15 ("Flotsam Cave").

For full descriptions of the encounters/rooms, see Cursed Scroll #3.

Room 18 ("Hall of Feasting"): There is an illusion here. While it is just old ragged tables and tarnished silver plates, those entering must pass a DC18 WIS check or think the room is full of food. If they eat the food, they get stuck for 2d4 days. There is no mention about how to solve the curse [besides waiting] but they can see a man who is half starved "eating" the food. He is the leader of the bandits from the previous session.
Room 15 ("Flotsam Cave") is a trash filled cave that has some potential treasure.
The lake has "hundreds of stinging, purple jellyfish". There is also a silver amulet at the end of the decaying dock. On it is a treasure. Of sorts. Or a curse. You know how it goes.

Since the specific room and encounter is a bit hard to predict until I actually play the scene, we'll leave things vague and fill in gaps/info as we need.

DATE PLAYED: June 22, 2025.

Day 3 (Airwen 23). ROUND 11. Torchlight Remaining: n/a.

Regaining Footing

The light of the campfire pushes only some distance in the dark, icy caverns. The ceiling rises up to just at the edge of light while the beach carries on some distance into the darkness. The still waters of the underground lake, a deep and dark blue, reflect the light back. Perhaps it is this that is most disconcerting. The way the water does not move. There are no waves. Only occasional drips as water from the ceiling strikes the surface. While setting up their base camp, they had spotted vaguely luminescent jelly fish under the water. Too far down to see clearly. Like seeing the ghost of a night sky.

Del has her pipe out and is smoking with her back to the darkness where she can keep an eye on the water. The others mostly look into the fire. They have done well in their exploration but danger lurks.

Gryffin uses his thumb to indicate the lake behind him. "I want to get in there and explore that, but we need to make sure our camp here will be safe. Ada and Boris, you stay here by the fire and then the rest of us will first go up the beach a bit. Staying close enough we can see the fire. Nothing has attacked us yet so I'd like to think this spot is safe enough for now. Once we get a good feeling of our surroundings, we'll then get out on this lake and see other paths."

The others nod at this plan, though Boris looks a bit sad — as sad a human-sized turtle that thinks of himself as an assassin can look — to be left behind on guard duty. If Ada has any objections, her strange otherworldly face shows no sign. Both are Bleak-touched. Boris is a chelonian who has taken the gentle nature of his people and turned his body into a weapon. Ada's folk were once human, but her deer antlers and multi-colored eyes show the effect of other forces in her genetic code.

"If you need us, shout. We'll do the same."

Day 3 (Airwen 23). ROUND 12. Torchlight Remaining: 10 [Louis].

Party moves north 30', can see a room opening up north of them.

Wandering monster check: 3. Negative.

Setting the Scene, e24s3.

This primarily derives from SWK Room 18 ("Hall of Feasting"). As described above. We have a starving man eating a massive feast of food. Are there light sources inside (not based on the description), illusory or otherwise? → 19. Yes, but... the illusion only shows up as you enter the effect of the room.

Does the food/illusion have a smell component? → 2, No. I think this, combined with the starving man, will reduce the DC to 15 to break the illusion. At least for Louis and Gryffin, both who are good at seeing through a situation and dealing with people.

DATE PLAYED: June 22, 2025.

Day 3 (Airwen 23). ROUND 13. Torchlight Remaining: 9 [Louis].

Feasting on Starvation

Marching order will be Gryffin and Ronick up front. Louis [holding a torch] and Del will take the rear.

As Louis's torchlight starts to illuminate a room showing up the north, with rickety wooden tables, Gryffin is caught off guard as he blinks his eyes and the room is suddenly lit. A number of candles burn across the tables — not so rickety at second glance — full of food. A lot of food.

"What in ancient hell is this?," he asks to no one in particular, or to anyone.

"Now that's a proper feast," Del remarks, peering over his shoulder.

"Yeah, but who put it out," Louis asks, "and who the shade is that?" Pointing to a man. Older than anyone here. Bearded. Oily. But also, deeply starved. Cheeks are shrunken. Black hair hangs loosely. He shovels the food by the handful into his mouth. Like, well, a starving man at a feast fit for a royal party.

Gryffin gets a 14 (-1 WIS) = 13. Fails, even with his bonus.

Louis gets an 18 (-2 WIS) = 16. Passes with the bonus.

Ronick gets a 6 (-1 WIS) = 5. Nope.

Del gets a 20! and succeeds with style.

As Louis keeps staring at the man, the food flickers and wanes. The room goes dark with the man sitting at tables once again rickety. Plates and candelabra are tarnished with years of age. Louis feels almost dizzy at the sudden shift, but Del's voice makes him feel better to hear:

"By Ord," she shouts, "What manner of trick is this? I was just starting to get excited by that food."

Gryffin, who had been walking into the room to approach the man, sword drawn, stops and turns back at his seafaring companion.

"Del, what is it?"

"I don't know, the food just..."

"Disappeared," Louis finishes.

Ronick grunts. Then laughs. "Are you tricking me so you can get that roast salmon first?"

Del shakes her head. "The food...it was strange. I just realized that it had no smell."

Louis nods at this. "Yeah, I was watching him eat," pointing to the man just on the edge of his torchlight, "and wondering how he could be putting that much food away without taking a drink."

I'll say that Gryffin is the kind of person who trusts his people. We'll give him a roll, at Advantage, versus DC12. This time he gets 16 - 1 = 15. The illusion fades for him.

Ronick deeply trusts Louis and we'll do the same for him. This time he gets a 20 as well. His long standing friendship has broken the spell.

At this, the spell breaks for the other two and now all far are standing in a room of ruin. Maybe once a great feast hall in life, but now a place only to die. Is it the ghosts of ancient feasts that animate it? Or something more sinister?

Are there other bodies here in the room? (ADV) → 11, Yes, but... a few very old corpses have mostly faded into the debris of old tables and debris on the floor. If they stay and search they might find them.

Gryffin looks back to the man shoving "food" into his face and now it looks like what it is. A man shoving empty air into his face. Trying to feed a terrible hunger with nothing at all.

Day 3 (Airwen 23). ROUND 14. Torchlight Remaining: 8 [Louis].

"What do we do with him?," he asks the other three. If it was just his life on the line, he'd try to pull the man out. However, staying in this room might bring whatever drew them in back.

I'll roll 3d6. Each 1-3 = "leave the area alone" and each 4+ will to be to try and save the man. Del and Ronick want to be done with the room [each rolled a 1, so they feel strongly about it]. Louis on the other hand rolled a 6 so he feels strong about saving the man.

Del suggests they get out of the room with haste and Ronick agrees. In his gruff, draconic voice, he wonders aloud if the man is part of the trap. Louis backs up Gryffin's urge to try and help the man. Gryffin gives some thought to the disagreement and suggests that he and Louis approach the man while Del and Ronick stay back.

Ronick grumbles at this. "Loo, man, if he's real, he's half dead."

"Yeah, Ron, but not all dead. What if it was you tricked into thinking you were eating some great roast salmon while you rotted away?"

"Bah, fine, but if he attacks you, I'm taking his head off."

"Perfect."

Gryffin nods to Louis and the two approach the man. After a few second of hesitation, Gryffin puts his hand on the man's shoulder.

Let's just through this to a reaction roll. At disadvantage. Not that it matters too much. It was a 6 and a 4. Both hostile.

"Sir, you need..."

"I'm feckin' eating, this is MY food." Standing up, the man takes a swing at Gryffin as Gryffin and Louis step back.

He rolls a 5 which is nowhere near enough to hit Gryffin's AC of 19.

Even as Louis and Gryffin move back, Rorick upholds his promise to protect Louis. The draconian runs in with his great sword swinging.

He rolls a 3. Even with his +3, that won't cut it. Pun intended.

The enraged, starved man is strangely spry as he leaps back on a table and the great sword smashes through the long dry rotted wood. Silver plates clatter to floor.

Gryffin is unsure what is going on but leaps after the man with a punch to try knock him out.

Gryffin gets a 16+2 = 18 for an easy hit. But now we'll do a special check. DC12 Wisdom check to see if he can judge the right amount of damage (Benark is presumably around 1hp and near death at this point so pretty much any unjudged hit will end him). 19-1 = 18. He does. Benark goes down into a slumber.

"Ronick, if you can carry him, let's get him back to the other. Maybe Ada can help."

Just to note: No one has any interest in looting plates that seem to have some sort of ghost food curse upon them. Ronick might be willing to risk it for food but not for a few haunted pieces of silver [even if they are worth 2gp each].

Playing in the Darkness with Dead Things

It will be Round 15 before the "away team" returns, so this leaves Ada and Boris time to chat. They aren't the sort that really talk to each other and there's a silver chain hanging on the end of the decayed pier. I'm going to make a very minor challenge just to let Boris act a bit like a kid. A DC12 DEX check to get out there (with DC15 to do it without the ancient pier crumbling).

"So," Boris asks while picking at his snapping turtle beak, "jellyfish, right?"

Ada continues to hum a song under her breath and just cocks her head slightly to the side. With her antlers, it gives her very much the appearance of a confused deer. No one but Ada knows the origin of the song. It was a tune made up by her mother that was sung to get the strange child to sleep. Back when life wasn't so strange for the young mutated girl. Before even her mom and dad considered her a bit too Bittermold. Another thing that no one but Ada knows is that deep down she is actually glad to have this new strange family of fools and remnants. The kind of words to explain this fact are as beyond her as the ancient language is beyond a potato farmer. Not impossible, just difficult and in need of training.

Boris sighs, taking Ada's internal sorting in the wrong way. As he gets up and starts searching their small campsite, he spots something. Right at the edge of the pier, and almost at the edge of the firelight. A silver glint. He kicks against the pier and the silver moves slightly. He turns, excitedly, to point it out to Ada but reading excitement on his snapping turtle face is not easy for those good at reading faces and Ada is currently worried that the kick she heard was frustration about her and so is looking off to the east where the dark of this underground beach devours the edge of sight.

Boris shrugs and lifts himself up on the pier. It kind of holds him. Besides, it's not like there is anything better to do while "guarding" freezing cold sand that has not seen daylight in...well, in ever. He guesses. Boris can smell the flow of water in the open ocean but down here? This is a place for worms and mushrooms. Those that don't mind the temperature, anyhow.

He braces his feet for it and takes off...

He gets ADV on sneaking/hiding but nothing like parkour type things. Rolls a 2. Even with his +1 it is nowhere near. The dock is coming down. He'll burn one of his "Smoke Steps" to leap towards the necklace and grab it.

Trying to roll to swim he first gets a 3+1=4DEX. Then, again, he gets a 20. So he flounders a bit but overcomes.

The jellyfish "roll" a 4, meaning they don't get to him.

Ada watches Boris leap up onto the pier and then a loud crack sounds out that echoes around the cavern. As the chelonian starts to fall, he moves impossibly fast — faster than her eye can track — and grabs something right as he and the ruins go down into the water. She is on her feet and watching the dark surface as bubbles drift up. But right as she starts for the edge to see if she can help he pops out from the dark and after effortless paddles toward the shore.

"That water is absolutely freezing!," he says with a laugh.

Because the decayed dock collapsed, will roll wandering monster at disadvantage— 5 & 1. They trigger an encounter.

Since the first two are more environmental, we'll do d6+2. 2+2 = 4. A ravenous zombie with a round shield, leather armor, and hand axe shows up. We'll say from the water. Normally zombies (ShadowDark [SD] page 265) have AC8 and do a +2 slam attack for 1d6. Leather Armor + Shield will boost that 13 - 2 (DEX penalty) = 11. The hand axe does the normal 1d6.

"What were doing, trying to..."

Ada spots the shop coming out of the water behind Boris and points. He does a quick front flip and reverses to see a nord corpse shuffling forward. Water-rotted leather armor — mildly preserved by the cold temps — wraps its decaying flesh. A rusty hand axe. Whatever magic animates it, is animating it right for them.

I want to try individual imitative. Boris gets 6+1 = 7. Ada gets 14+2 = 16. Normbie gets 20-2 = 18. It goes first.

It will attack Boris.

8+2 = 10 vs Boris's AC of 13. Miss.

Ada attacks with a dagger. 13-1 = 12STR. A hit. For 2hp (zombie has 11).

Boris attacks with his razor chain and whiffs. Natural 1. Spends a Luck token (5 remaining). Gets a 4+2 = 6. Still a miss but doesn't critically fail.

The zombie moves with surprising speed and swings the rusty axe but Boris gets his shell in the way and it bounces off. While it is focusing on the chelonian, Ada has her dagger out and stabs into its sodden flesh. The entity does not react at all.

Boris pulls out his razor chain and spins to slash it across the zombie. It very nearly gets caught in the rotted flesh but at the last second he manages to pull it back just right to disentangle it.

Initiative: Boris (13+1=14). Ada (16+2=18). Normbie (20...again).

Zombie this time attacks Boris again. Mad about that dock. 14 + 2 = 16. Hit. 2 damage.

Ada: 3-1 = 2. Miss.

Boris: 16+2 = 18. Hit. Does 3hp damage. Zombie has 6hp remaining.

If we go with conversation = 1 Round. Pier equals 1 round. Combat equals 2 rounds, so far, the others will show up on the next, running to help.

As the second slash of the axe comes down on Boris, this one chips a bit of shell off and slices through the arm. The chelonian curses loudly. Ada drives forward and tries to get a second stab in, but this time the misses. Boris snaps the chain at the zombie, wrapping around its arm, and pulls tightly. It cuts through the soft flesh but the zombie has no sense of pain or fear and so continues its assault.

Initiative: Boris: 15+1=16. Ada: 14+2=16. Zombie=14-2=12. This time the zombie goes last. If the zombie is still standing we'll roll init for the others.

Boris: 13+2 = 15. Hit. 1hp. Nice. Zombie has 5hp remaining.

Ada: ooo, 20. Gets that Luck token back from earlier. Gets 2d4 damage. Gets...2. Hah. 3hp remaining.

Zombie: 19+2 = 21. Against Ada. For 6hp. She goes down. Gets 4 turns on her death clock.

Gryffin: 13+5. Strong hit. Does 7hp damage. Zombie does not make it's "Relentless" save and collapses.

Boris dives to the zombie's right and slashes at its axe arm while Ada goes for the left and stabs into the zombie's left. Both land hits but the animating force of the creature keeps it upright.

Tragedy hits as the zombie changes its target from Boris to Ada. The swing of the axe catches her off guard and she falls!

"ADA!," Boris shouts. From the darkness behind him, an arrow shoots true and catches the zombie through its head. Finally, the animating force is vanquished and it collapses near the water's edge.

Gryffin runs up with the others and taken in the scene — collapsed pier and collapsed Ada — "What happened? Are you hurt?"

Boris tries to stammer an apology but Gryffin cuts him off. The ranger pulls forth his pouch of herbs and vials and starts working on a concoction. The second time he has done such for Ada in as many days. He tries to not think to himself that maybe she shouldn't be here as he works on a healing salve.

Rolls at to make a DC15 [WIS] healing salve. Gets a 3. Spends the luck token that Ada just got back. This time gets a 20 [hello!]. Gets that luck token back and has a double dose. I'll say he can give one shot to each of the two youngest members. Boris gets 3hp back [to full] and Ada gets 6 [to full].

As he tilts Ada's head up, Gryffin puts some of the healing salve on her head injury and pours some into her throat and washes it down with water. He then hands the other half of the concoction to Boris. The chelonian starts to refuse but Gryffin insists. Boris is definitely looking sheepish — at least those who can read chelonian expressions — but gets more excited as Ada starts to revive.

"I'm so sorry, Ada. I just saw this glinting at the edge of the pier and thought it might be...interesting." He holds up a silver chain with a bone ring on it. "I...don't know what it is, though."

Bone-based relics seems like it might be in Ada's wheelhouse. We'll say DC15 INT. 2+1 = 3. No. She doesn't recognize it.

Before this next moment, I'm going to give Boris a WIS open check. 7-3 = 4. Yeppers.

She shakes her head. "It's...interesting. Looks like a ram's head. You should wear it. It would look good on you."

Boris smiles a snapping turtle smile and takes the ring and fits on his smallest finger, blinking a bit as he feels a certain...anger...wash over him. But the positive attention from a member of the group counteracts it. For now.

The Ring of Ramlaat allows you to enter into a berserker rage once per day (double damage, but enemies have advantage to attack). It also taunts the wearer into attacking and entering into conflict.

Ada thanks Gryffin as he helps her to her feet. He half ignores it, still trying to not think too badly of the two. He gets her attention and points to the dying man. "Can you try and help with him?"

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's been eating an illusion for some time."

"I'm not a healer. Maybe feed him."

"Yeah, but how..."

Boris coughs. "I was a cook. Fed a lot of half-starved sailors. I can come up with something."

"Something that tastes better than a magic spell?"

Boris goes over to the chest and rummages pieces from the food inside. He starts prepping a gentle broth that will still be full of flavor.

Because it is sort of a redemption moment for him, and because he wants to make it up to Gryffin, I'll give him Advantage [besides, his background is as a cook]. The DC will be 15 since he's competing against magic. He gets an 18-3 = 15WIS and hits it.

14 rations remain in the chest.

Since this will take a few rounds, let's say d6+2 = 4+2 = 6. 2 more wandering monster checks. Both negative. This brings us to round 21...just to make that official...

Day 3 (Airwen 23). ROUND 21. Torchlight Remaining: N/A.

Boris spends the half an hour making the a cup of broth that Gryffin has to admit the smell is delicious. Considered the dried and generally spartan nature of their rations, he is unsure how the teenage chelonian managed it. Still, he takes it and gives it to Louis to pour in small doses into the man's mouth. The man starts to stir as real food starts to register with his body — and quite excellent real food — and quickly takes the cup and downs the whole serving.

"More...," he croaks.

"We have more food we can share, but first can you help us?," Louis says in his most pleasing voice.

Rolling with ADV for the food and his bard background, gets 13+3 = 16CHA and passes a DC15. The man is going to be majorly impressed.

"How can I possibly help you?"

FUTURE DOUG HERE: I realized right as I was editing this post that if they moored the boat near the docks, that it's collapse might have caused the boat to drift. I didn't say at the time and frankly feel it would be unfair to just solo-caveat and say "nah, something else" so I'll leave it to chance. Did the boat get set free at the collapse of the of the dock? → 9. No, but... the mooring ropes are tangled in the wreckage. Nothing that requires any dice roll or play time, but something for story.

The last couple of bits here were added at that time.

"We need to know our way around these damned caves," Gryffin answers, "So let's talk about that while Boris figures out how to get out boat free from the mess he made..."

"Ah, squid," Boris says, looking at the boat half sunk as the weight of the collapsed pier has pulled it slightly under.

On the Nature of the Months in Barthus

Before the fall of Barthus, the empire kept time through a series of twelve months. Each named for a type of tree that thrived. Each having 30 days precisely. The names of the months are derived from Old Barthic words and some degree of semantic drift has changed them. After some debate about how to handle the final few days of each year, in Barthic Year 697, it was decreed that the final five days of each year would be called Thorn (or Dran, in old Barthic, there are debates about which is most appropriate).

After the collapse of Barthus, the people of Grunce and some other locations have kept up this system of months. Some consider it to be the year 1791BY. Others, like Cal Grunkheart, put the date 301 After Crossing. A new calendar for a new, terrible world.

The relative isolation of the various pockets of Barthic remnants means linguistic differences exist amongst the Barthic diaspora, but in Grunce the 13 months are:

[SPRING STARTS] Ingode [Flowering Dogwood]
Crosen [Cherry]
Salea [Azaleas]
[SUMMER STARTS] Falla [Apple]
Gellig [Pear]
Airwen [Plum]
[FALL STARTS] Dorwen [Oak]
Onwen [Ash]
Yanwen [Yew]
[WINTER STARTS] Pyngode [Pine]
Sedwyd [Cedar]
Merryw [Juniper]
[THE CHANGE OF YEARS] Dran [Thorn]

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

June 24, 2025

On the Session that Never Was...

As hinted at in Intermission #7, there was a session of this campaign that has now faded into relative non-existence. In it, a few non-sense moments happened. Ronick wandered north on his own. He went into the room and I misread the encounter and made him roll to see if he would start eating immediately. He did. Del and Louis found him, and starting grabbing the plates and tossing them out. For some reason, I started playing it as if the room was right at the beach so it was like they were tossing them right out into the water. All this did was to cause the man inside to scream, rush out, and drown himself to try and get to the plates.

Eventually, four of the team — everyone but Boris — pulls Ronick out and tosses him in the water and he ends up getting stung a lot and finally "breaks the curse" after using his lightning breath to send bolts of lightning into the water. Around this time, Boris spots the chain and does a quick jump to get it and then gets back with no problem. He feels the anger of the ring but laughs it off because he "always choses violence." After that, they decided to head up the beach towards the flotsam cave.

Add to this that I rushed getting them back into session with no real notekeeping about restocking, healing up, or anything. No sense of Gryffin's general careful planning for his team. Essentially no one — except maybe Ronick — was played like a character. So I restarted it and worked out much more about how they actually act. I kept Boris making the nonsense decision to try for the shiny thing to alleviate his boredom and impress Ada. For my sins. And his.

During that session, though, I did work out the months, above. So I kept that.

Getting Back to the Session That Is...

I had a lot of fun playing through this a bit slower and figuring out the voices. The brashness of Del. The careful leadership of Gryffin. The bruskness — but still team-player-ness — of Ronick. The shifting vibe of Louis as he plays up to what he thinks people want to hear. Ada struggling to fit in despite her antlers [and hooves, which people likely haven't noticed]. Boris being very much a teenaged, bleak-touched, ninja chelonian. The latter two are the youngest but also the ones most abandoned by their family [Ronick is kind of abandoned by his family, but largely because he abandoned them first]. It's nice to picture them making a frienship. One that might be tested by Boris being influenced by the ring.

I still don't know if it is "proper" to allow someone to heal a person doing death saves but I'm going to say it is. It's how I would play it non-solo. If anything ever says otherwise, I'll probably ignore it.

This is the kind of session where half of it doesn't really make it to the "page." I set up a folder for files related. Set up a template. Updated some CSS. Set up a musical playlist. Got the files sorted to have the ones that are "officially" part of the campaign [see the Credits, below]. Tossed one set of dice because they were being very naughty — actually the dice set I reviewed months ago — and instead I subbed in some dice that I think came from the Shadowdark Kickstarter. Black with silver skulls. They work a lot better at not rolling the same three numbers on repeat.

Speaking of music, this will mark a slight shift for me, at least compared to more recent months. I have been largely using a single album to act as a kind of theme for each session/post. In this case, I just loaded up a playlist of various music with generally a mix of folk, world, dark ambient, ambient, sort of alt classical, dungeon synth, and such. Then I just play it at random. The playfulness of the Boris scene, pre-fight, was a bit brought about by the playful nature of the soundtrack at the time. Etc. If ever a track really shines through the current playing, I might give it a shout out.

On the personal side, after playing this I am going to be packing up most of my gaming supplies: dice, random generators, and such. I'll keep a few small books and my "small box of dice" out. That might be it for my physical toolkit for a couple of months.

June 25, 2025

After some thought, and thinking back to the way that some threads and characters shifted hard or disappeared in the The GLOW 1996, I figured it was a good idea to create a fully "Open Threads, Notes, Situations, and Complications". It'll sit at the bottom of each post and I'll update it as things change. It's a little fuddly to put it on EACH post and I might change my mind and just move it to a single document in the future but this way I don't have to spend quite so long having to open up three or four previous posts each time I'm just trying to recall some info about a city district or whatnot.

CREDITS

At it's core, the Bleak + The Pearl is a ShadowDark (by Kelsey Dionne and Arcane Library) and SoloDark game. Various Cursed Scrolls and other official supplements are used for characters and notes. More information is available at The Arcane Library.

This session is played using materials from Cursed Scroll #3: Midnight Sun including the Sea Caves map used for the main adventure, the text from the "Hoard of the Sea Wolf King" adventure, and the Isles of Andrik used for the hex crawl. "The Hoard of the Sea Wolf King" and all maps used in it are by Kelsey Dionne. Used here for personal use. The hex crawl, including Valthis (etc), are also creations of Dionne. The hex map cartography is by Cameron Maas.

Tokens are from Game-Icons.Net's various artists and used here CC-BY 3.0.

Other sources that have been used in this campaign include (those in bold are especially well used):

Zach Best's Universal NPC Emulator.
Paul Bimler's The Solo Adventurer's Toolkit One & Two.
Cesar Capacle's Random Realities.
Atelier Clandestin's Sandbox Generator.
Kevin Crawford's Worlds Without Number and Scarlet Heroes.
Xane & Bunnie Daniels' (et al) Unnatural Selection.
Matt Davis and dicegeeks' Books of Random Tables. Various ones but especially the The Great Book [Fantasy] and Quests series.
Various maps by Dyson Logos.
Ben Milton's Knave, 2nd Edition.
Chris Powell's Letters from the Dark series of supplements.
Raging Swan Press's GM Miscellany series, especially Dungeon Dressing and Wilderness Dressing.
Skerples' The Monster Overhaul.

ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION

The splash art is derived from "Banquet Still Life" by Abraham van Beyeren.

Open Threads, Notes, Situations, and Complications

[Primary] Finding the fuelstone activators:

The [Mad Del] Marius Diadem [Found, Returned, Activated]
The [Elude] Harucam Mantle
The Bittermold Mask
The Mistamere Lens
The Grunkheart "Eye"

Gryffin's doubt about Boris and Ada's abilities to help
Boris is being slightly (for now) manipulated by the Ring of Ramlaat
Gryffin is under a Great Oath of Odin to help Signe [Valthis] vs Jarl Karsgald. He has until Pyngode 1 when Karsgard launches his winter campaign.
Exploring Jonias's Grunkheart's lab and the Everburning Forest to harness its powers.

Jonias's pocket dimension

Working with the Librarian [the Grunkheart Golem] to take control of the monolith
Grunce Drama:

House Marr [who manages the marketplace] vs
House Allocius [who manages the shipyard] vs
Free Merchants [those who do not wish to align with the current two great houses]
Currently the plot by Marr to sabotage the Free Merchants has been anti-climatic.
Lady Moreena Grunkheart [Gryffin's mom and Cal's Aunt]: Current leader of House Grunkheart
Lady Varren Marius [Del's cousin]: Current leader of House Marius

The Bleak:

On the Effects of the Bleak + the Pearl

Other Characters:

Blkalkkbl [aka, "Blick"]: A mutated slime who has been living in the Monolith for decades or centuries, currently helping out research in the Lighthouse.
The Lighthouse Keepers who work with Cal Grunkheart to keep the Lighthouse from Fading

Father Marnit: a priest.
Nelf and Terk Haskins: Lighthouse keepers. Senior Expedition Planner and Chief [Ancient Tech] Investigator, respectively. Nelf is also in an awkward relationship with Cal where both mostly wonder what the other one is really feeling.

Imari Denish: an old elf merchant who runs the Boot & Wares, an Expedition Shop specializing in Bleak dives. Always playing the long con.
Toby Galfreet: a merchant who works for House Marr and works against the Free Merchants
Uuld Alloces: An efreeti who actually befriended Jonias Grunkheart and has stayed in the Everburning Forest as a guardian
The Salamanders of the Everburning Forest, including Hucleo, who befriended the adventurers and are now at least soft allies
The strangely mutated and very talkative gargoyles of the South Barthic Plains
The Cultists of the Everburning Forest, who are up to something and employ demons and flaming tar golems

Other Places:

The Isles of Andrik: North of Barthus and free from the Bleak
Caux Mountains

The Everburning Forest is inside it in a valley

Sofron Desert:

Mist Lake: Not actually a lake, it's a flat still portion of the desert traditionally run by House Mistamere after they fled Grunkheart

South Barthic Plains

The River Orneth flows through it

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