My kind of band

It's been a small devil of a week. We forged through the post-Faire blahs, but Yeats learned that a former student died unexpectedly (she was only 25, God rest), Aveline and I have had to have several conversations with a very gaslighted--gaslit?--client, and our new waste-management folks were two days late delivering our new bins, and the recycling was about to gain sentience and fight for kitchen land rights.

But! We will see friends at the Party Saturday night, many of whom I haven't seen in months, and there will be food and drinks and, weather permitting, a fire in the firepit. And two of Yeats' three remaining birthday/anniversary gifts have arrived, and I know he will love them. And we have a small local con to attend next weekend, and a larger con to attend in two weekends, and reviews of Crusade have (with a very few exceptions) been positive!

And there is always gaming. For brief background, we are currently playing as a band of mercs and hunters (taking the "band" concept from Nicholas Eames' wonderful Kings of the Wyld and Bloody Rose, where mercenaries tour cities and kingdoms and "perform" gladatorial fights in arenas and have fans and groupies) in an underground city, and are fighting to reclaim some access tunnels and food sources from what's turned out to be an illithid and his swarm of dark-gnome thralls.

Yeats, dwarven cleric: I would like to cast Speak with Dead so I can talk to the illithid we just killed.
J, human swashbuckler: This is how you get alhoons, you know.
A, dwarven paladin: INSIGHT CHECK!

Yeager, GM: The dark gnomes tell you that there's a thriving mushroom plantation down that way, but it's currently blocked by umber hulks.
Almost everyone: Oh hell's bells, umber hulks!
New Guy, dwarven wizard: I realize in character I would know this, but what's am umber hulk?
Yeats: A cross between a giant beetle and a gorilla that can confuse you, then flatten you.
Me, human fighter: Did you ever see "The Dark Crystal"? Remember the Garthim?
New Guy: Oh shit, umber hulks!

Yeager: ...and the dead illithid mentions a beholder in tunnels about a week away...
Me: Of course there's a beholder.
Yeats: Illithid, umber hulks, a beholder...all we need now is a black dragon.
A: Don't say that out loud!
Yeager: Guys, if I knew how to get a black dragon into cramped underground caverns, I'd have done it by now.

Yeager: Yeats, you're up. How do you want to attack the umber hulk?
Yeats: I cast Sever. *rolls* Success!
Yeager: What does Sever do?
Yeats: One of its limbs falls off.
Yeager: ...dear god, man.
J: I am bringing you to all my parties from now on.
A: Gives "got your nose!" a whole new meaning.
Me: Now I would actually like to fight a dragon, just to see you do that with one of its wings.

Yeats: Okay, Thormir the dwarven cleric is in charge of convincing the dwarves to work with the remaining dark gnomes, Elspeth the human fighter is convincing the humans, Daedrigon and his few fellow elves have nothing to lose, and as for the halflings...?
Duke, halfling rogue: Hey, guys, we can start growing hallucinatory smokable mushrooms again if we ally with the dark gnomes.
Yeager: ...well, the halflings see no reason to argue with that logic.

Love this game, and my group. New Guy is also having a great time, and has taken to Magic Missile like a duck to water.

Reading Log: As She Ascends by Jodi Meadows; House Rules by Chloe Neill; Half Past by Victoria Helen Stone