Recap, Crooked Crossroads, Session 2
DungeonAM
Pages
Crooked Crossroads
Crooked Crossroads
Session 2
Characters
player Characters
The Party of Dubious Professionals
Blueberry, Florist of Quiet Threats
Not all heroes come with swords. Some come with pruning shears and the dead-eyed stare of a woman who has had enough. Blueberry once ran a flower shop — a flower shop — where dreams went to die and customers went to demand impossible things at discount prices. Weddings, funerals, cursed anniversary bouquets — Blueberry arranged them all while silently plotting her customers’ slow demise. Now, surrounded by adventurers instead of bridezillas, she tends to her plants with the same ruthless precision. If she offers you a bouquet, check for thorns. If she names a flower after you, that is not a compliment.
Ipid, Veteran of Regrettable Wars (Still Ipid. Still Suffering.)
Some men leave the battlefield behind. Ipid? It follows him like a debt collector. Surrounded by old ghosts and new disasters, Ipid has become the spiritual dad of this idiot family — grim, patient, and visibly counting to ten every time someone does something stupid within stabbing distance. He’s seen it all before. He hated it then. He hates it now. His sword’s sharp, his glare’s sharper, and gods help you if you mistake his silence for approval — it probably just means he’s considering how much paperwork your corpse will require.
Scorn, Bard of Weaponized Spite
Scorn is a bard — but not the kind with cheerful tunes or bawdy songs. No, Scorn is the rare breed of bard whose every lyric feels like a court summons, and whose performances leave emotional scars. He doesn’t sing for you. He sings at you. Former classmate of the eternally punchable Lucas, Scorn has refined the art of humiliation into an instrument all its own. His songs aren’t catchy — they’re indictments with rhythm. The lute is optional. The bitterness is not. He’s the only bard who can do psychic damage without magic — just lyrics and eye contact.
Pappy, Fist of the Forgotten (Still Grandpa Violence)
Pappy remains exactly as he should be: a weathered old bastard with knuckles like history lessons and morals best described as “blunt-force.” He has no patience for cowards, no tolerance for fools, and absolutely zero respect for a clean fight. If it needs punching, Pappy’s already halfway through the swing. If it doesn’t need punching — well, wait five minutes. It probably will. Age has only sharpened his temper and dulled his filter. Somewhere beneath the scars and the scowl might beat a heart of gold — but good luck surviving long enough to find it.
Aldric, Scholar of Suffering (Now Surrounded by Artists. Worse Than Corpses.)
Aldric is a wizard in a party full of creative types. Which is to say: he is in hell. A flower shop owner, a bard, and a cast of people whose collective wisdom could fill half a thimble on a good day. Aldric survives through discipline, sarcasm, and the quiet, seething rage of a man who has edited group research papers before. He came into the ruins expecting eldritch horror — he was not prepared for Lucas. Or MorningDew. Or any of this. If his spells hit harder than necessary, that’s not an accident. That’s therapy.
Session Summary
- Descent and Discovery
- Party delves deeper into dungeon, attacked by phase spiders.
- Discover Lucas — former classmate of Scorn, childhood tormentor, idiot noble-turned-researcher.
- Lucas claims to be researching the Potion of Immortality.
- Lucas has trapped the caves with beartraps — one bloodied.
- Follow blood trail to Kentworth — ex-soldier known to Ipid for brutality.
- Kentworth was dishonorably discharged after killing a captive.
- Now working escort duty for researchers.
- Encounter phase-spider-repelling mushrooms.
- Battle against ghosts — Lucas and Kentworth flee.
- Pappy injures Kentworth to prevent escape.
- Lucas collapses in terror, tangled in roots.
- Party retrieves both.
- Find Thessik — ex-soldier who refused to burn Pappy’s village (out of cowardice, not mercy).
- Thessik tries to be helpful, hinting at knowledge.
- Pappy knocks Thessik unconscious.
- Find esoteric room with ancient symbols.
- Learn vital Potion of Immortality ingredient: blood of a celestial infected with vampirism.
- Find Lorain — obnoxious, selfish druid — dragged and injured.
- Scorn drugs her with a love potion to ensure cooperation.
- Navigate twisting cave paths.
- Reach chamber with skeletal hammer guardian and spiked pits.
- Psychic compulsion to open sarcophagus resisted with magic.
- MorningDew — clueless academic known to Aldric.
- Exit & Revelation
- Party exits temple into a storm.
- Witness emergence of a vampiric celestial — white-winged horror that takes to the skies, vanishing southward.
- Confirmation of legend’s truth — the Potion’s key ingredient is real.
Webs, Fools, and Old Enemies
Deeper still the party pressed into the gloom-choked bowels of the Abandoned Temple of Barad-Dur, the slick stone walls whispering with skittering legs — phase spiders. Again. Like a bad habit with fangs.
But it was not silk alone that snared them — no, snarled in the webs was none other than Lucas, the bane of Scorn’s academic youth. Lucas: pampered idiot, fourth son of a congressman, and proof that money could indeed buy you a degree — just not intelligence.
Now exiled to the Crooked Crossroads, Lucas fancied himself a researcher, a bold alchemist on the trail of the fabled Potion of Immortality. In reality? He was playing in ruins he barely understood, laying bear traps in the dark like a child scattering caltrops in the nursery.
It was one such trap, half-forgotten and bloodied, that led them to Kentworth — a man known to Ipid from darker days. Kentworth: brutal, dishonorable, and too stupid to stay discharged. Once a soldier, now reduced to escorting academics through haunted tombs for pocket change.
Cowards, Ghosts, and Grudges
Revived and limping, Kentworth was barely upright when the party pressed on — luminous mushrooms lining their path, a ward against planar horrors.
It wasn’t long before ghosts came screaming from the stone, furious remnants of lives better forgotten. The battle was brutal. Lucas and Kentworth fled like rats, but Pappy — ever the violent pragmatist — smashed Kentworth’s wounded leg, dropping him like a sack of failure.
Lucas, meanwhile, managed to tangle himself in roots, faint from terror, left drooling in the dark. The party retrieved his useless form with the tenderness of an angry blacksmith retrieving lost tools — that is to say, with violence.
Reunions and Revelations
Further in, the party encountered Thessik — a soldier from Pappy’s past. Once ordered to burn Pappy’s village, Thessik refused — not out of honor, but cowardice. Now, desperate and pathetic, he guided researchers through the ruins for coin. His reward? A swift beating from Pappy that left him unconscious.
Deeper still they found esoteric symbols — wards and warnings from ages past. Through cunning magic they unlocked grim knowledge: one of the Potion of Immortality’s key ingredients — the blood of a celestial infected with vampirism.
The Temple’s Heart and the Unworthy
Onward, through grand doors, they reached a hidden temple — there lay Lorain, the most unbearable druid ever to darken Blueberry’s shop door. Dragged bloodied into the depths, she remained combative even in rescue. Scorn, wielding subtlety like a cudgel, drugged her with a love potion to ensure cooperation.
Navigating the labyrinthine halls, they reached a grand chamber lined with spiked pits. At its center — a sarcophagus. Standing sentinel beside it: a skeletal warrior gripping a hammer the size of regret.
Psychic commands wormed into their minds, compelling them to unseal the sarcophagus. But wits and magic prevailed, breaking the curse’s hold. Who did they find? MorningDew — a tiresome academic known to Aldric for her ability to speak at length without saying anything of value.
Departure and the Horrors Above
As the battered party emerged from the crumbling temple into driving rain, thunder rolled like the laughter of cruel gods.
Then — the earth split.
From the torn ground erupted a radiant horror — white wings gleaming in the storm, fangs glinting beneath celestial features twisted by vampirism. It ascended into the sky, vanishing southward, leaving behind only dread — and confirmation.
The legend was true.
The vampiric celestial existed.
QOL updates
rule clarifications
