The Lady Laughs

it's a new campaign start day! we're playing The Crooked Moon, a folk horror by the people behind Legends of Avantris. what I've seen of their work (I've been watching the Actual Play that inspired the module) has been really creepy and cool, so I'm very excited to be traumatized.

the character I'm playing is Jabo, a hobgoblin from the Forgotten Realms who dies and gets dragged to this terrible afterlife where he becomes a living skeleton. the whole concept of his character is that he's basically Johnny from The Devil Went Down to Georgia, except he lost the fiddle contest and therefore his soul. (I always liked the devil's solo best, personally, for all that Johnny's is apparently a lot more difficult on a technical level and he basically beat the devil's ass.) Jabo is a ruthless little con artist with a cocky streak, and I love him very much.

a song that makes me think of him:

one of my d&d campaigns, Arvandor, is wrapping up around March. T's been homebrewing a new campaign about fucked up fairy tales and I've been revamping a character I played in previous oneshots on a different server, an oath of redemption paladin named Dalton. as I sometimes do, I accidentally created a minor obsession and ended up writing fic about his backstory. I'm not putting it on AO3 yet, I don't think, but I'm going to put it here because why not:

( cut for self-indulgent backstory exploration of my own OC from 6 years before the campaign starts )

it's Frostmaiden day again! we're headed back to my paladin Skink's hometown. he's.... not very happy about it. so here's a song for his years in Baldur's Gate:



( a rambling explanation )

it's Frostmaiden day again! I've been having feelings about Skink and his slow-burn romance with the party's cleric all day, so I'm posting this song that makes me think of them:



I know this song gets used in playlists and fanvids a lot, but damn it, it's a good song and it's perfect for two deeply traumatized people who stumbled into love during multiple apocalypses. Skink is a cynic, and he was not expecting to get clobbered by his own capacity for softer emotions or to ever find someone willing to love him. plus he really likes it when they set things on fire; he usually sneaks away after the fight to shakily enjoy a cigarette, because WOW HOT.

(I.... am pretty sure the two of them have yet to kiss after weeks of dating because both of them are trying so hard not to push each other before they're ready. Skink is having vivid dreams about kissing their knuckles. they're on a boat with the rest of the party, including Skink's brother, and no privacy whatsoever. they're going to die of yearning and it is hilarious.)

this is belated, but we had Frostmaiden on Friday, so I wanted to post a song for Skink that I found hilariously appropriate:



my poor religiously traumatized paladin who's not sure about all this god stuff got martyred and accidentally ended up a very reluctant saint of his goddess's church. he doesn't want it and definitely doesn't feel worthy of it, but there's no undoing it now. so he's trying to figure out how to make this whole saint thing work despite being a foul-mouthed disaster who used to break kneecaps for a living. it's a work in progress.

(yes, I do find the whole thing hilarious.)

tonight we have Curse of Strahd again and will probably reach the final boss battle with the vampire fuckboy Strahd himself. I'm excited but nervous because I'm playing a healer who's responsible for keeping people alive while massive damage rains down. I'm relieved to still have resources to bring people back from the dead. anyway, here's a song by John Carpenter that feels eerily appropriate for this final push:

tomorrow afternoon we're playing Dungeon of the Mad Mage, so here's a song for my vengeance paladin / ex-pirate Rhys:



.... listen, a lot of my ttrpg characters are various levels of attractive, ranging from scrawny enby angel to anemic goth priest, but it's very important to note that a lot of Rhys's charisma is just being blisteringly hot. it makes up for his incredible lack of wisdom and intelligence (he has a -3 in both) and for the fact that he's a total fucking disaster boy. I love him dearly.

it's the day for Curse of Strahd! I don't have a specific song for Tali, but I do have this one for general creepy Barovia vibes:

it's Rime of the Frostmaiden day! I've put up the majority of the songs for Skink where I can point to lyrics and explain why it suits him in my brain with actual logical reasons, so I'm gonna post one that's just there for pure vibes:



(yes, I do consider the unofficial title of my Skink playlist "hallelujah, motherfucker", why do you ask?)

today may be the last session of our (extended) Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign for a while, since we've wrapped up the module and the follow-up and T isn't fond of what Wizards of the Coast published for a potential second follow-up, so I figured I'd post another song for my tiefling warlock Key to hold until T finds a module she DOES like:



I've really enjoyed Key. despite their twisted upbringing in an apocalypse cult, they're delightfully angst-free. they just want to hang out with their friends and pet dogs! they're not 100% clear on WHY the cleric doesn't want them to murder indiscriminately but they like him so they try to be Good and not kill if they don't have to. they're all of 18 and a very good kid, and I will miss them until we play again.