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lettersfrombel12 Tarsakh 1492 DR
A goblin camp by Moonhaven
My dear River
I wonder how much I should say, because this will worry you. But let me open by saying it is the next morning after my prior letter and I have come to two very distinct conclusions:
Firstly, I am never going to get a proper night’s rest without something happening that causes me stress and anxiety. And that my days of apparently largely dreamless sleep are over. On our first night, things seemed quiet, if you ignore that all of us were dealing with the implications of our situation. The second night was when we met Wyll’s infernal patron. And now… well, I will get to that, but we can add ‘number of my companions who have held a knife to my throat’ to two. (I am not mad at her, she had a good reason.)
Secondly, I have somehow become the leader, and it may be because I have stolen the crown of ‘most well-adjusted’ from Wyll, and I do not know how I have ended up with six of the most unfortunate souls in the area! Literally in my last letter, I related a story about my childhood that would upset every animal lover in Faerun! It may be that Madame Lae’zel is a perfectly normal young githyanki, it’s just that she and I both come from societies that are dysfunctional in different ways. But while she might want to be leader, I think it would be like the saying… oh, damn. Herding something… herding ducks? Those are the animals that are supposed to follow their parents in neat lines, but this inevitably ends with some of them wandering off?
Let us review:
— Madame Lae’zel is apparently born to a society whose entire goal is to back up their immortal queen’s war against the mind flayers.I suspect both of us grew up being told that we were a waste of food and shelter until we proved ourselves useful. She has yet to reach the stage where she decides the whole thing is rigged and can fuck right off. It does mean my nickname for her has changed cadence, in that it is more serious. As far as I’m concerned, she is proving herself quite fine.
— Shadowheart is a cleric of a dark god, who agreed to have her memories wiped to retrieve an artifact that is currently keeping us all free from control. Again, as someone raised by another god from the Lower Planes, I sympathize. She also has some aversion to Selunite relics — or at least, that is when it seems to trigger — that goes beyond just ‘oh, my god hates her guts’.
— Karlach was kidnapped to the Hells to fight in the godsdamned Blood War and had to claw herself back, and now an Archdevil wants her dead or alive. I have no idea why she is so cheery, beyond the ‘not in the Nine Hells any more’.
— Master Gale has some unspecified condition that leads him to unravelling magical items for the Weave inside them, and I have no doubt that this is for some tragic or stupid reason.
— Dear Wyll made a pact with a fiend, and I hope it wasn’t only because he was young, idealistic and thought he could out-bargain a devil to do some good. (Or at least Madame Mizora targeted him for reasons deeper than ‘young and idealistic’; you can’t throw a stone in a human city without hitting a young, idealistic would-be adventurer.)
— And now Astarion is the fucking vampire I suspected was around here. Or vampire spawn, to be precise, which is apparently all of the worst parts of being a vampire with few of the perks AND having an actual vampire calling the shots.
So, I continued to feel awful last evening after writing my letter, and it dawned on me that between Master Gale and Madame Lae’zel, I knew what the symptoms of ceremophosis were, and they were starting. Which meant we had some time, but not much. Unfortunately, Madame Lae’zel had also realized it, and decided to take matters to hand. Hence the ‘hold knife at Bel’s throat’ incident. She was courteous enough to not stab me in the back, which I do appreciate — she wanted me to know why she was suddenly trying to kill me, and that I was her first would-be victim, but not her last. Flattering.
River, I was more than half willing to let her do it. I don’t fear my own death, even if I’d rather not die. But, well, if I held out just a little longer, we could at least stop the goblins and keep the tieflings alive. My link with Madame Lae’zel’s mind also showed she has her own wish list of things to accomplish. My goals have always been short term; she has lofty ambitions to serve her people as more than one more foot soldier. I talked her into giving us one more night to confirm that it was the onset of symptoms. Frankly, at that point, I would have poisoned breakfast myself if she were correct.
That isn’t exactly conducive as a state of mind to actual rest, be it sleep or trance. I know surface elves often see memories, sometimes of prior lives, in trance. We dream less often, and there is no indication that we are reincarnated from prior generations of elves. Mostly I come to with the feeling that my mind has spend the time reading books, without remembering any of the exact words. This time, I get a vision, and a being promising me that he was willing to protect me from Junior’s transformation, but that I had to start using the tadpole in my skull for more than just bullying goblins and impromptu therapy sessions with the others. And that the fate of Faerun was at stake, and see what I said earlier about short term goals! I am not a hero, or a savior, and if we are relying on me, Faerun better get used to disappointment.
After that I try to get some rest, but then we have me waking up with Astarion on top of me, with fangs clearly visible. He immediately tried with the ‘it’s not what it looked like’, and I had to point out that besides ‘you’re the vampire in the area’, everything else I came up with is equally predatory in its own way. I could make a list. I was too tired to go through the options last night, so settled for a ‘what in the hells?’
I doubt it was smart to agree to let him have some of my blood, even if only a bit. He told me he largely fed on animals for actual sustenance, but he did need some humanoid blood to feel sharp. The bond we share, it showed he was forced to animal blood, and the… well, the vibe I perceived was not a situation where this was for the safety of the people of Baldur’s Gate. I want to see what he does when he can choose to limit his targets, rather than having it chosen for him. I’d rather not kill him. Of course, now I feel like shit warmed over in the morning, and he’s getting a talking-to that no one likes a partner who is only out for his own satisfaction, and that if I’m going to have a man on top of me while I'm in bed, I want to get something out of it more than his chipper mood.
And, then in the morning, not only did we have to deal with everyone else reacting to Astarion’s not technically alive state — with the general consensus being if that he ever tries that shit again on any one of us, he is going to have his head removed from his body — but that apparently all seven of us had a similar dream. Of note, Gale called his mysterious visitor ‘she’, while I am rather sure mine was male. That suggests that whatever face I saw, it was one crafted to appeal to me. Of us, only Astarion was inclined to take the visitor’s advice, but I can’t blame him from that. He noted he should have been dead that first day, at the crash, from sunlight exposure.
For a drow, I have always been relatively resistant to sunlight. I don’t care for bright light, hence my hat affectation, but many of my people can barely see in bright light, and even I manage to get sunburns despite my dark complexion. Except I’ve been out here in the country for three days and the sun hasn’t bothered me at all. While our dream friend saved all of our lives in the crash, Astarion has a natural reminder of the power of the things in our skulls. He called me a cynical asshole for suggesting some care. I merely hope he does not trade one person holding his leash for another.
I am still very tired, but my idle thoughts about what to do if we didn’t sleep off the change did give me an idea, though I might need Master Gale’s assistance. A party has a punchbowl, and someone always spikes the punch if it is not spiked. After all, if they have numbers and pointy things on their side, the worst strategy is an open battle.
If you don’t get this letter — and I may see if Withers’ services include making sure someone finds my folio of letters here in camp if I die — well, you will know how well this plan worked out.
Your stressed, distressed but still tentacle-less friend,
Bel
From the Player:
A goblin camp by Moonhaven
My dear River
I wonder how much I should say, because this will worry you. But let me open by saying it is the next morning after my prior letter and I have come to two very distinct conclusions:
Firstly, I am never going to get a proper night’s rest without something happening that causes me stress and anxiety. And that my days of apparently largely dreamless sleep are over. On our first night, things seemed quiet, if you ignore that all of us were dealing with the implications of our situation. The second night was when we met Wyll’s infernal patron. And now… well, I will get to that, but we can add ‘number of my companions who have held a knife to my throat’ to two. (I am not mad at her, she had a good reason.)
Secondly, I have somehow become the leader, and it may be because I have stolen the crown of ‘most well-adjusted’ from Wyll, and I do not know how I have ended up with six of the most unfortunate souls in the area! Literally in my last letter, I related a story about my childhood that would upset every animal lover in Faerun! It may be that Madame Lae’zel is a perfectly normal young githyanki, it’s just that she and I both come from societies that are dysfunctional in different ways. But while she might want to be leader, I think it would be like the saying… oh, damn. Herding something… herding ducks? Those are the animals that are supposed to follow their parents in neat lines, but this inevitably ends with some of them wandering off?
Let us review:
— Madame Lae’zel is apparently born to a society whose entire goal is to back up their immortal queen’s war against the mind flayers.
— Shadowheart is a cleric of a dark god, who agreed to have her memories wiped to retrieve an artifact that is currently keeping us all free from control. Again, as someone raised by another god from the Lower Planes, I sympathize. She also has some aversion to Selunite relics — or at least, that is when it seems to trigger — that goes beyond just ‘oh, my god hates her guts’.
— Karlach was kidnapped to the Hells to fight in the godsdamned Blood War and had to claw herself back, and now an Archdevil wants her dead or alive. I have no idea why she is so cheery, beyond the ‘not in the Nine Hells any more’.
— Master Gale has some unspecified condition that leads him to unravelling magical items for the Weave inside them, and I have no doubt that this is for some tragic or stupid reason.
— Dear Wyll made a pact with a fiend, and I hope it wasn’t only because he was young, idealistic and thought he could out-bargain a devil to do some good. (Or at least Madame Mizora targeted him for reasons deeper than ‘young and idealistic’; you can’t throw a stone in a human city without hitting a young, idealistic would-be adventurer.)
— And now Astarion is the fucking vampire I suspected was around here. Or vampire spawn, to be precise, which is apparently all of the worst parts of being a vampire with few of the perks AND having an actual vampire calling the shots.
So, I continued to feel awful last evening after writing my letter, and it dawned on me that between Master Gale and Madame Lae’zel, I knew what the symptoms of ceremophosis were, and they were starting. Which meant we had some time, but not much. Unfortunately, Madame Lae’zel had also realized it, and decided to take matters to hand. Hence the ‘hold knife at Bel’s throat’ incident. She was courteous enough to not stab me in the back, which I do appreciate — she wanted me to know why she was suddenly trying to kill me, and that I was her first would-be victim, but not her last. Flattering.
River, I was more than half willing to let her do it. I don’t fear my own death, even if I’d rather not die. But, well, if I held out just a little longer, we could at least stop the goblins and keep the tieflings alive. My link with Madame Lae’zel’s mind also showed she has her own wish list of things to accomplish. My goals have always been short term; she has lofty ambitions to serve her people as more than one more foot soldier. I talked her into giving us one more night to confirm that it was the onset of symptoms. Frankly, at that point, I would have poisoned breakfast myself if she were correct.
That isn’t exactly conducive as a state of mind to actual rest, be it sleep or trance. I know surface elves often see memories, sometimes of prior lives, in trance. We dream less often, and there is no indication that we are reincarnated from prior generations of elves. Mostly I come to with the feeling that my mind has spend the time reading books, without remembering any of the exact words. This time, I get a vision, and a being promising me that he was willing to protect me from Junior’s transformation, but that I had to start using the tadpole in my skull for more than just bullying goblins and impromptu therapy sessions with the others. And that the fate of Faerun was at stake, and see what I said earlier about short term goals! I am not a hero, or a savior, and if we are relying on me, Faerun better get used to disappointment.
After that I try to get some rest, but then we have me waking up with Astarion on top of me, with fangs clearly visible. He immediately tried with the ‘it’s not what it looked like’, and I had to point out that besides ‘you’re the vampire in the area’, everything else I came up with is equally predatory in its own way. I could make a list. I was too tired to go through the options last night, so settled for a ‘what in the hells?’
And, then in the morning, not only did we have to deal with everyone else reacting to Astarion’s not technically alive state — with the general consensus being if that he ever tries that shit again on any one of us, he is going to have his head removed from his body — but that apparently all seven of us had a similar dream. Of note, Gale called his mysterious visitor ‘she’, while I am rather sure mine was male. That suggests that whatever face I saw, it was one crafted to appeal to me. Of us, only Astarion was inclined to take the visitor’s advice, but I can’t blame him from that. He noted he should have been dead that first day, at the crash, from sunlight exposure.
For a drow, I have always been relatively resistant to sunlight. I don’t care for bright light, hence my hat affectation, but many of my people can barely see in bright light, and even I manage to get sunburns despite my dark complexion. Except I’ve been out here in the country for three days and the sun hasn’t bothered me at all. While our dream friend saved all of our lives in the crash, Astarion has a natural reminder of the power of the things in our skulls. He called me a cynical asshole for suggesting some care. I merely hope he does not trade one person holding his leash for another.
I am still very tired, but my idle thoughts about what to do if we didn’t sleep off the change did give me an idea, though I might need Master Gale’s assistance. A party has a punchbowl, and someone always spikes the punch if it is not spiked. After all, if they have numbers and pointy things on their side, the worst strategy is an open battle.
If you don’t get this letter — and I may see if Withers’ services include making sure someone finds my folio of letters here in camp if I die — well, you will know how well this plan worked out.
Your stressed, distressed but still tentacle-less friend,
Bel
From the Player:
A bit of handwavium here because I long rested to get the Astarion cut scene, not knowing I’d trigger the Dream Visitor cutscene instead. So Bel gets what should be two nights’ worth of drama glued into one, and the continued belief that his companions all have The Worst Timing. Also, we still have the owl bear one in the queue (I hope).
I don’t think Bel is actually ‘most well-adjusted’, he just is used to his own issues so everyone else’s surprise him. But he tends to feel like he has to take on a leadership role because he feels responsible for people. Bel was a parent-figure to his younger brother, blames himself for the younger brother running away, and now adopts strays and tries to rationalize that this isn’t him caring about people. On the tabletop game, we joked that he and River were the Team Parents, because the other three characters were teenagers, and when one player switched characters, he switched to a half-orc raised by wolves who wasn’t so good with people (but at least knew it). Honestly, River was the main Team Non-Binary Parent, and Bel was the one who was able to assist, but would go off the rails on his own occasionally.
Confusing cats and ducks is a Babylon 5 reference I couldn’t resist making. In that case, the alien ambassador knew what sort of creature he was talking about when he was trying to say ‘nibbled to death by ducks’, but couldn’t remember the word, and his assistant mixed up his English animal words. Here Bel knows what ducks and cats are, but gets the idiom wrong, because he’s seen a mother duck try to navigate with ducklings, but herding cats is largely metaphorical.
There is something deeply fucked up about how Bel starts identifying with Lae’zel when she tries to kill the entire party and then herself because the symptoms are starting. But ‘being taught that your life has no value unless you achieve something’ is something a drow can relate to, especially a male. Bel has kind of embraced his ‘if I’m worthless, so what?’ attitude and ‘my people’s standards of worth can be really fucked up’ but hasn’t quite synthesized those into a sense of self-worth. You can see that with Bel’s reaction to ‘you must save Faerun from the Absolute’ is ‘Are you sure you have the right dreaming mind?’.
I considered doing up the Guardian/Dream Visitor/Spoiler McSpoilerpants as looking like someone from Bel's past, but I concluded that anyone living would just make him more suspicious, and anyone dead or assumed dead would be suspicious if the Guardian wasn't actually trying to mimic their speech patterns, which the game isn't set up to do.
Neither love nor money can convince me that Bel didn’t make at least one sexual innuendo when volunteering to give Astarion some of his blood. Whether or not he made more came down to whether it successfully defused Astarion’s clear discomfort at revealing his vampire spawn status and that yes, he probably should have asked first but he didn’t expect anyone to agree, or if adding sex in made it weird or triggering. I also suspect that Bel and Astarion are the sorts who will enable each other with innuendos, to the point that Lae’zel wants to gut them both (and may assume that all elves are like that when it’s just these two fucked up ones.)
We also start to see more that Bel is considering telling his friend, but decides not to. Letting Astarion feed on him was ‘this may be one of my poor decisions, but let’s see’. River was the one who talks Bel out of bad decisions in the tabletop game (or at least was along to limit consequences), so Bel is unsure how much he wants to reveal to his friend.
In the tabletop game, we were using Pathfinder 1e rules rather than D&D 5e, and one option let you swap out racial features, so Bel didn’t have the drow sunlight sensitivity in return for giving something else up. Headcanon is that Bel has some surface-elf ancestry — after two sons and unspecified miscarriages, his mother was interested in checking if the problem in getting a daughter was her consort, so Bel has a different biological father than his siblings. So I rationalize that why Tav/Durge drow and Minthara don’t have sunlight sensitivity is for the same reason that Astarion doesn’t have some common vampiric weaknesses also works for me.
