Blizzard Watch Plays Otherweald, Episode 1: The interplanetary circus surprise

Welcome friends, to a land where all planes touch, and no one is really sure how it came to be. Ancient dragons fighting in the astral plane? Mad mages burning rifts through space time? Really bored gods looking for a vacation spot in the multiverse? Either way in this first session our party comes together in the industrious city of High Gate, shining jewel of the free lands. Welcome to Otherweald.

The team’s resident D&D players have started up a brand new campaign, and you can join in our adventures from the very first episode. (For fans of the previous campaign, don’t worry! We’ll be revisiting it eventually, and you can catch all 16 zany episodes here.) You can listen to the episode or read the recap below, and we’ll be playing again on Saturday, February 13 at 2:30pm Central if you want to listen along live on Twitch.

But for our first session, these were our fearless adventures:

• Deb: Mairsy Dotes a Rock Gnome Wizard with some homebrew customizations making her an Illusionist Tinker.
• Andrew: Diener  an Air Genasi Warlock (Genie Patron). Diener was created by the Primordials to serve the mortal races.
• Matt: Mae hi’n llew a Leonin Fighter (Rune Knight). Mae is a member of a pride named the Stelciwr Cra that patrols the Northern Reaches between Jotunberg and the Hidden Grove.
• Liz: Rahn a Changeling Rogue (Phantom) recently re-habilitated from being a member of a death cult to the goddess Lilith.

Cory and Anne will be joining us for future sessions, and personally I’m looking forward to what characters they cook up.

It was a fun introductory game for sure, and one I highly recommend you give a listen to before we get into any spoilers with the synopsis below.

https://soundcloud.com/blizzardwatch/blizzard-watch-plays-overweald-01-the-interplanetary-circus-surprise

The game opened with Rahn and Diener working at the bar, Rahn’s preferred job so she can watch people and learn how to interact with proper folks. Walter’s Hotel and Casino is always full of people, even in the early morning hours, and the dwarven-themed bar — affectionately named “Rock Bottom” — is chock full of folks looking for a stiff drink or a hearty meal. It is then that a mysterious gentleman entered the bar, not tall enough to be a human, not quite small enough to be a gnome or even a halfling, his odd smile ever so slightly off-putting. After some quick back and forth, he paid for his hospitality with some gold and a golden ticket for each Rahn and Deiener, each embossed with their full name. Before they could react the stranger was gone, and they were left with a simple instruction: Tear the ticket at eight bells for an out-of-this-universe entertainment experience.

Mairsy was in her herbalism class, being taught by one of the great heroes of Otherweald, Asha the Tiefling Druid. After class wound down and Mairsy was mostly not on fire any more, she stayed behind to tidy up a bit. A mysterious stranger walked in hoping to purchase some rare multi-dimensional herbs. Mairsy obliged and made some extra coin for her trouble, and earned herself a golden ticket embossed with her full name and the same instructions given to Rahn and Deiner. Slightly weirded out, Mairsy decided it was time to grab a pint at her favorite bar.

Mae was wandering into High Gate for the first time, a stranger in a strange land, when she encountered carnival barkers and a strong man attempting to delight the crowd. After some awkward interactions — and telling the strong man that he smelled funny — Mae also earned herself a golden ticket embossed with her full name and a set of instructions on how to get to the most popular hotel establishment in the city.

As the party members gathered at Walter’s, Mairsy showed her ticket to her friends Rahn and Diener, while they talked about the weird man they had encountered. Mae, catching wind of the strangers’ scent came over and introduced herself. After some planning and discussion the party decided two things:

1. This was most certainly a trap.
2. They should absolutely go and kill whatever was waiting for them before it came looking for them again.

At the chime of eight bells the group tore their tickets and were transported to the strangest circus any of them had ever seen — though instead of being in the stands, it turned out that they were the entertainment for the evening!

A feline ring master announced them to an audience of multi-planar beings and summoned forth the first of the evening’s challenges: a Royal Chimera.

Be sure to listen to find out what happened, and I am very excited to see what the party does in our next installment!