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52: Wakey Wakey, Violescence and Bakey

May 8, 2026

Setting​

The morning after Razlemania. Greyport is still cleaning up the arena. Iro's workshop is locked and quiet. Roughly four in-game days have passed since the Luna Trench expedition, and Luna's sending stone has started lighting up with panic — Eldoran Knights have anchored an industrial operation directly to her remains. By session's end, the party will have severed the rebinding ritual, killed an Eldoran captain at sea, stuffed four crates of violescence into a god's chest cavity, and welcomed Luna — fully fleshed — back into the world.

Players Present​

  • Topher (DM)
  • Taylor Ramsey as Silas Fairbanks — Halfling Rogue/Sorcerer
  • Justin Hale as Bru — Goblin Artificer
  • Ali Leonard as Elspeth Cooper — Dwarf Artificer/Gunslinger
  • Luke Neverisky as Leliana Goldspring — Human Bard
  • Ellis Taylor as Olivia Cooper — Dwarf Paladin

Plot Events​

The Sending Stone Goes Off​

The session opens on a recap. Roughly four in-game days since Luna Trench. The party has named the location — Luna Trench — for marketing reasons, and trademarked it three times in case anyone is listening. Followers of Luna apparently pose like Sailor Moon now. This is canon.

Then the sending stone lights up. Luna, panicked:

"Eldoran Knights are in the ocean. They have a device. There is a portal gate, with people moving in and out, and they are attaching chains and a spike. I believe they are trying to break my link to existence. I need Taco Cat's help."

The stone is not personalized — Luna has sent the same message to everyone she gave one to. The party heads for Iro's workshop to retrieve Gary's stone and find out what is left of the man, since Gary walked into Crowley's portal at the close of the last session.

Iro Returns​

The workshop is shuttered. The party knocks. Nothing — and then, with no warning, a portal tears open in the alley and Iro powerbombs Count Dastardio through a folding table in the street.

Dastardio, before being thrown back through the portal:

"If you kill me, the life of Princess Celestina shall be forfeit."

Iro vows to break the blood curse, kicks Dastardio back through the rift, and the count splits into multiple flickering Iros and vanishes. Iro himself walks back to the workshop sweaty and shirtless and unlocks the doors. Olivia, Leliana, and Elspeth take a long, appreciative moment to ogle his abs.

The party briefs him on the Luna alarm. Iro briefs them on explosives.

The Plan​

Silas proposes the cover: disguise as members of the Order of St. George — dragon hunters, well-known Eldoran allies — and pretend to "betray" the operation mid-mission, splitting the Eldoran detachment from its support.

History checks confirm the Order is legendary enough that the Eldorans on the barge probably don't know its individual operatives by sight. The Iron Maiden — the boat — is too recognizable, however. Silas uses his hat of disguise to dress himself as a St. George knight. The party renames the boat differently on each side: Led Zeppelin on one flank, Dancing Queen on the other. A divorce-down-the-middle motif, in case anyone asks.

Bru consults Iro on how to weaponize the violescence crystals. Arcana with advantage and a bardic boost from Leliana: 33. Iro reasons through it like a physicist:

"Putting interdimensional objects inside other interdimensional objects causes them to explode."

Bag-of-holding-in-a-bag-of-holding logic. He hands Bru a grenade launcher roughly Bru's size and a bandolier of violescence to throw into anything that looks portal-shaped.

Leliana takes the helm. Olivia, retired detective Olivia Cooper, and the NPC Scarlet ride along.

Approach to the Trench​

The party arrives offshore to find a three-barge industrial operation directly above Luna's resting place:

  • Two floating platforms, each connected by huge iron chains running down to spikes anchored into Luna's crown.
  • A third barge with an active portal on its deck — a shimmering vertical column of light through which laborers and knights are moving up and down, ferrying material between the surface and somewhere below. The drop to the water is roughly three hundred feet.

Forces: ten Eldoran Knights, ten or so laborers, five scientists or researchers around a ritual circle, and a single captain at the center, watching everything in silence. Each knight wears six violescence crystals visibly mounted on their armor. The captain has fifteen.

Leliana crits Perception (24) and spots two enormous anchor bolts driven into Luna's skull.

The crystals are clearly the source of Eldoran power — they glow when used. Elspeth files this away: when they get back, Scarlet and Jasper need to start figuring out how to neutralize one.

Cover Story​

Silas opens on the radio, calmly identifying himself as Order of St. George patrol, sweeping for dragons. Deception: 45. The Eldoran captain welcomes them in. Boat closes from three hundred feet to one hundred, well within grenade range of the active portal.

Bru fires.

Direct hit on the active portal. The portal collapses inward. Three Eldoran Knights and three workers standing too close are dragged into the void. A miniature black hole forms where the portal was, and the third barge starts disintegrating around it — bodies leaping from the deck, jumping ship Titanic-style, pieces of the boat folding into the singularity behind them.

Elspeth deploys Boxbox below deck for repair backup and casts Warding Bond on Bru.

The Pocket Village Connection​

The chain on the previously inert portal lights up with bluish-white magic. The empty frame flickers to life — a second portal, fed by the rebinding ritual, opening somewhere.

Silas, perception jacked to 28 with Psychic Knack and bardic inspiration, looks through the opening — and recognizes the place.

Beach. Lake. Quiet village at the foot of a mountain. Iro, visible in the middle distance.

It is the inside of the pocket village.

The Eldoran chain-portal isn't just anchored to Luna — it is tuned to wherever Luna is, and Luna is currently inside the pocket village the party uses for rest. Destroying the portal would cut the link. So would severing the chain. Either is doable, but the second portal must not be detonated like the first.

Silas radios the captain:

"You've served your purpose, Eldorans. The Order of St. George stands alone now."

The captain, evenly:

"Roger that, you dragon bastards. We're going to shoot you right out of the ocean. And we will lay waste to everyone you called friends and family."

The cover is blown. The fight is on.

Severing the Chain​

Silas Misty Steps seventy feet, then swims another ten — eighty feet closer to the ritual site. Leliana spots the captain and her surrounding soldiers injecting themselves with something at the ritual circle, six hundred feet away. The crew of one of the remaining barges is wheeling a mounted gun around to point at the party's ship.

Leliana drops Antagonize on the closest of the three soldiers manning the gun. He fails the INT save and, in his mind, every other Eldoran around him is suddenly an enemy — he draws his sword and starts hacking at his own crew while the other two scramble to defend themselves.

She gives Bru juice.

Bru fires the grenade launcher at the chain. Hit. Thirty-six damage. The chain holds, barely.

Bru's bonus action: Eldritch Cannon, force ballista. Crit. Thirty-nine damage. The chain severs.

The dead portal goes inert — just rotting iron now. The unanchored barge starts drifting. Silas's pocket-village link is intact. Luna's rebinding to the Eldoran portal network is broken.

The captain, mid-ritual, lifts off the deck on her own power and starts flying directly at the party's ship.

Killing the Captain​

Elspeth opens with Heat Metal on the captain's armor. Eleven damage on contact, and the captain's attack rolls go to disadvantage as her plate cooks. Her counter-attack on Elspeth — five, five, six, four, finishing at twelve — misses cleanly.

Silas's plan is independent and elegant: teleport to the partially destroyed enemy boat, use telekinesis to swivel the mounted cannon, aim it at the command tower, and pull the trigger remotely. He executes it in stages over the next two rounds — eighty feet of teleport, fifteen feet of athletic swimming (18), and a 23 sleight-of-hand to redirect the cannon. The shot punches a ten-by-ten hole through the enemy command center and capsizes that boat. Workers flee for the lifeboats. The Antagonized knight finishes off his unconscious comrade with a sword through the head and turns toward Silas.

Leliana commands the captain to halt. She saves with a 21 — the captain has stims in her system and her Wisdom is propped up. Leliana then spends her concentration on driving the boat through the wreckage, threading around the black hole and crushing bobbing knights with the propeller. A misfire of an accidental fireball catches Bru and Elspeth on her own boat — both fail their Dex saves, take thirteen fire damage each, but Warding Bond cuts Bru's load in half and Elspeth's resistance handles the rest.

Bru grenade-launches the captain herself: twenty-three to hit, forty damage. She is now on fire, slowed, cooking inside her own armor, with disadvantage on everything.

She closes anyway. Her attack rolls on Elspeth: seventeen and twelve. Bru burns his Protective Wings reaction (Gift of the Metallic Dragon) for plus four AC. Both miss.

Elspeth reapplies Heat Metal — three damage — then shoots the captain with her gun. Twenty to hit. Thirty-seven damage with lightning rider dice.

Leliana casts Frostbite. Captain fails the Con save. Eleven cold damage.

Bru finishes her with the force ballista. Twenty-three to hit. Sixteen force damage. The shot punches through her charred helmet and crumbles her skull inside the metal. Topher narrates her last expression as the moment she regrets ever going to the captain's academy. She sinks in burning, sizzling armor.

Ali laments that Scarlet didn't get to see it.

The Sharks Are Bros​

The remaining mounted cannon, on a third boat at the edge of the engagement, opens fire on the party. Nat-four to hit — wide miss on most of the deck, but Elspeth and Leliana take seven fire each. Bru's resistance soaks his entirely. Boxbox repairs the boat for sixteen, lightning tendrils stitching the hull's wound shut — Ali notes this is a build choice she made over a year ago and has been waiting to use.

Ali has Boxbox enlarge the boat's engine. Arcana 22. The ship's top speed triples. Leliana drives 250 feet toward the next portal.

Silas, watching the bloody water, spots dark shark-shaped silhouettes converging from below — perception 21, polite gentlemen sharks in tuxedos and top hats. The sharks have been canon since Razlemania and they remain canon now. Silas leaves the surviving knights to them.

He moves and bonus dashes sixty feet to the ritual site, unfurls the violescence, and stomps it down into Luna's chest cavity.

"Wakey wakey, violescence and bakey. We are fucking Frankensteining a dead god. We are past the point of being creepy at this point."

The substance flows into the bones. The seabed begins to move.

Luna Materializes​

As Leliana drives, Luna's body assembles. Flesh forms over the ribs. Fingers and toes wiggle. Eyelids fold over empty sockets. Eyes open underneath them.

Bru tries to grenade-launch the dormant second portal — perception 25 confirms it is just iron now, not yet relit — at disadvantage. He rolls a twelve and misses, vaporizes a worker on a smoke break with a Charlie Chaplin mustache, and damages the barge underneath.

The third boat's cannoneer keeps firing. A nat-twenty volley targets Elspeth. She Shields up to AC 20 to block the first hit but eats thirteen damage on the second. Knights on shore wing twenty-five damage onto Silas while he is hunched over the ritual; he takes it without dodging because his hands are full of violescence.

Luna's first arm sweeps a wave of about twenty tuxedoed sharks onto the knights — top hats, canes, polite bites in turns.

"Good show, old sport."

Her second arm raises a barrier of cover around Silas and lifts him as the new flesh folds in around the bones beneath him.

Bru crits the cannoneer with the grenade launcher — nat twenty, forty-one damage — and blows him ten feet off his own gun. Eldritch Cannon takes the cannon off its pedestal but fails to wreck it.

Combat ends. The sharks are eating the surviving knights. One knight escapes on a lifeboat. The party lets him go. Ellis predicts he will become their big bad nemesis, sworn to avenge his captain.

Luna Returns​

Luna fully materializes — flesh, skin, clothing — and a coral-style temple rises from the seabed under her. Silas, History 18 with Flash of Genius, recognizes the architecture. It matches the lower reaches of Haiou.

Luna briefly teleports away. A distant shriek. She reappears.

"I made sure he knew. Luna has returned. The Eldorans should take note."

She turns to the party:

"Thank you. I can help you, as I gather strength, to take on the Eldoran Empire."

Session ends.

Notable Character Moments​

  • Silas spotting the pocket village through the second portal is the structural pivot of the entire fight. The original plan was to blow up both portals. The reveal — that the chain-portal system is tuned to Luna wherever she is, and that Luna is currently inside the pocket village the party rests in — converts a demolition job into a precision job mid-combat. Severing the chain instead of nuking the portal is the difference between rescuing Luna and accidentally erasing the village.

  • Bru's grenade launcher earns its keep. He kills the active portal, severs the chain with a force-ballista crit, kills the captain, and crit-blows the third boat's cannoneer off his cannon. Iro's grenade launcher and Iro's bag-of-holding-in-a-bag-of-holding logic get a complete demonstration in a single session.

  • Leliana's Antagonize on the gun crew is the cleanest piece of crowd control in the fight. One spell, one failed save, and an entire mounted-gun team is fighting itself instead of the party — including the moment the Antagonized knight murders his own unconscious comrade with a sword to the head before turning on Silas.

  • Elspeth's Heat Metal is described, accurately, as an objectively horrific way to kill someone. The captain's stim-juiced resistance does not save her from cooking inside her own armor with disadvantage on every attack she throws. Bru finishes her, but Elspeth set her up.

  • Silas stuffing violescence into Luna's chest cavity is the spiritual centerpiece of the session. He does it under fire, takes twenty-five damage standing still because his hands are full, and refuses to dodge while the ritual completes. The "wakey wakey, violescence and bakey" line lands on a literal Frankenstein procedure on a dead god.

  • Boxbox's hull repair, with the lightning tendrils stitching the boat's wound shut, is a payoff for a build decision Ali made over a year before this session. Combat moments like this don't happen by accident.

Themes​

  • Severing instead of destroying: The portal-and-chain system is architecturally a cage built around a god. The instinct is to detonate it. The discipline is to figure out which piece to cut so that the cage falls open without killing the prisoner. Silas's reading of the second portal is what converts the operation from a kill to a rescue.

  • Frankensteining a dead god: Luna does not return on her own. The party physically packs her chest with crystallized violescence, and her body assembles around the offering in real time while combat continues around it. Resurrection in this campaign is a manual procedure performed on a corpse under fire.

  • Sharks as canon allies: A running gag from previous sessions becomes a literal battlefield asset. Luna sweeps a wave of tuxedoed sharks onto the surviving knights as her first act in the new flesh. The campaign has been building toward this for months and it pays off in top hats and polite bites.

  • A nemesis seeded on purpose: The party deliberately allows one knight to escape on a lifeboat. Luna teleports out specifically to make sure he knows what happened. The sworn-avenger arc is being staged in real time.

Session MVP​

Silas — For the deception roll that put Taco Cat inside the operation, the perception roll that recognized the pocket village through the second portal and converted the plan, the telekinetic redirect that turned the enemy's own cannon onto their command tower, and standing still inside Luna's chest cavity stuffing violescence into the bones while taking twenty-five damage from shore. Three roles in one session — infiltrator, planner, ritualist — all played with full commitment.