Sparkatale

I apologise in advance because I feel like this is going to be a bit of a weird comment. I’m not entirely sure how to phrase things knowing this is based on a DnD campaign, but I’ll give it a go xD Anyway, this was a really fun read. I’ll admit my knowledge of the universe and DnD in general is very limited, having only played it once in my life (and I don’t think we really figured out how to play it properly hahaha). I have played Skyrim though which I know is likely inspired from similar kind of stuff and so I kept getting major Skyrim vibes throughout. the descriptions of the world, the characters, the quests, etc, all reminded me of that game :P Which only added to the good vibes I got reading it haha.

Anyway, I must say I loved all your descriptions throughout this chapter. Of the characters, the location, pretty much everything :P It felt so detailed and like the characters/location were actually alive and places you could visit. I found the characters interesting too and I’m keen to see how they interact with each other going forward. They were diverse and again it’s cool how real they all feel. I like that we can already understand a little of how each character fits into the fantasy world. Feels weird to say that knowing they were brought to life by actual players haha.

Lastly, I’m curious to see what happens with this mission. This Emil guy seemed kind of sinister so I hope it’s not a trap of some kind, but hard to say at this point. I’ll be curious to see what happens next! :D

Thanks for the comment! Well, if you had difficulty commenting that’s probably pretty fair since I had a lot of challenges writing this. My main focus was to honor the story that we told. I didn’t want to take much at all in the way of creative license with it. What happened, happened. The dice told the story they wanted to tell, I’m just sharing it. I also wanted to make it feel, at least somewhat, like DnD. I wanted people familiar with the game to be able to pick up on where dice rolls were made. Characters seeing something, or getting strange feelings about other characters, or trying to steal a coin purse from another player in session effing one and failing your stealth and sleight of hand checks As a rogue. Donovan, I swear xD But ultimately, a fun read is actually exactly what I was going for with this. That’s really what DnD is; fun cooperative storytelling. It’s the game where if you’re playing to win you might be playing wrong. Some of the best, most memorable moments come out of the failures. I would argue that there is no “proper” way to play DnD though. If you and your group are having fun, you’re playing just right. Rule of Cool always beats Rule as Written. The rules are just a framework. Ultimately, I wanted to try and capture that feeling of cooperative storytelling with this. I have no idea if I'll succeed by the end, but that's the goal :P

To be honest, I can’t take credit for the world or the characters except my own :P I don’t know if you’ve ever watched Critical Role, but the world is Matt Mercer’s creation so all of those locations are his. We’re just borrowing his incredible world to play in. His world building is beyond amazing and his ability to weave a story is even better. He inspired me to improve on my own world building because the places and cultures he creates are so rich and vibrant. Like even the tiny little things are so detailed. I don’t know how he does it. As for the characters, credit for them must absolutely go to my fellow players and our DM. This group, honestly, is the best I’ve ever played with. Master class role players and personally I’m just honored to be allowed to share our story this way. Each of them brought so much to these characters and they play them so realistically that it was honestly pretty easy to translate them onto the page. It also helps that we’re much deeper into the campaign now so I can slip in details and things that weren’t readily apparent when we were playing this part. I will say that the interactions within this party are… fascinating xD We are a chaotic bunch, that’s for sure. It’s so strange how different bonds and connections build between the characters. For example (Spoiler alert for deeper in the campaign that I probably won’t end up converting into narrative format. Probably.) Pen and Candelaria, my character, end up getting really close and forming a super tight almost sisterly friendship. I never expected that going into the campaign because of how different those too characters are.

As for the quest… let’s just say our DM pulls no punches :P I can’t even deal with this man sometimes xD He went all out on this first quest and as a long time fan of Critical Role, it was great fun and it certainly helped give our adventuring party its name. It probably won’t have as big an impact if you haven’t seen the show, but hopefully it’s still a fun ride nonetheless :)

Sorry for taking such a long time to comment on this. I know I say that every time (and I say this every time too :P) but I’ll keep saying it to keep myself accountable cos I want to do better xD Anyway, this was an entertaining read and was packed full of interesting developments. It was cool to see the gang meet and negotiate with Eskil. I agree with Donovan, the whole situation seems very strange. I’m not entirely sure I trust Eskil, even though he did apparently do good things in the past and was very defensive when they accused him of having alterior motives. He just gave off shady vibes especially when he tried to deny it xD It seems strange that he wouldn’t go to collect the vestiges himself or that he would hire random people to do it. I’m not sure if we’ll discover more of his motives in the scope of this story, but still, I found it suspicious :P Of course, I could be entirely wrong and he’s just a cranky old man xD

I liked seeing the characters develop too and it was cool how real and natural their banter all seemed. Again, feels weird to say knowing they are created by real people xD Once again I found this very well written and even though I don’t know anything about the source material I still got a good sense of where everything is and could begin to see how the city worked. Even though I know you didn’t create this world, you’re doing a good job of describing it and selling its atmosphere to a noob like me xD I’m excited to see what happens next and what kind of horrors the gang might find on their journey.

Heh, you know if it makes you feel better then feel free to go ahead and continue saying it :P Just know that I absolutely do not mind and you are not hurting my feelings in the least if you take a while :) It’s so interesting to see the different takes on Eskil from the people who have watched Critical Role and those that haven’t. He’s a character from their first campaign, so I knew exactly who we were going to meet the second our DM said to go to Greystone Tower. Not all of our players were familiar with CR when we started, so they had reactions similar to yours. Of course, none of our characters knew either so even those of us who knew the guy from the show had to roleplay as though we didn’t know whether he was going to stab us in the back or not. I will say though that he’s heavily overstating his involvement with stopping the Chroma Conclave and Vecna. I mean… he was there. For some of it. A little bit. But instrumental? No, not even close xD

Like last time, I absolutely owe the natural banter and easy flow of these characters to my fellow players and DM. This is collaborative storytelling and I’m just one small part of it. None of this would translate nearly as easily to the page if these folks I play with weren’t so incredible at telling this story in the first place. I’m very glad you hear you’re feeling the atmosphere and understanding the world clearly. Trying to write in Matt Mercer’s world is absolutely terrifying :P I have so much respect for him as a storyteller that I get extremely nervous whenever I try to write this in fear that I won’t do it anywhere close to justice. And, honestly, it’s not because if you pulled up an episode of Critical Role and listened to him describe his world, it would completely overshadow anything I could try to do. And honestly, I highly recommend you check out CR if you ever have the time. It’s a lot to get into given that the first campaign is like 450 hours long, but that group manages to tell an absolutely fantastic story that if hilarious at times and will absolutely rip your heart out at others. It doesn’t do the best job of demonstrating what real D&D is like, but they know how to tell a good story that is better than a lot of television shows/movies these days.