Flashpoint: Rest & Relaxation

Considering the rather epic earlier session I wanted to go with something a bit more roleplay-heavy as a bit of a breather between the two adventures since we're about to get into a heavily modified form of the third book in the Council of Thieves adventure path (how do I love that adventure path!). Not sure how successful it was as at least one player wanted a bit of a de-stress combat run. Having said that, the next bit with the devildrome involves a bit of conversation and investigation before the combat so it might have been more worth luring them out at night onto the Westcrown streets to slaughter some shadow beasts. I think I'll go with that as a start for the next session before they head back to Augustana briefly for some divine assistance from the temple of Shelyn and to report back to the Admiralty. A brief combat run would be good to test out their Mythic-ness as well and I like to ensure that there's at least some combat every other session. Ah now I recall why I didn't go with that this time! There's not much in the way of Shadow Creatures at Level 9, let alone at Level 9 + 1 Mythic Tier, so I'm going to have to heavily modify some of the existing creatures to keep it from being a yawn-fest. I didn't get the chance to do so last time so it was either a random devil encounter or nothing. Not quite as fitting. Note to Self: Create a dossier of appropriately leveled shadow beasties to keep them occupied. Once I've done that, I'll post them up for your enjoyment. So what happened in this session? The group debriefed with their First Mates and other important individuals. Cassilda's actress and the nymph were put into Archer's cabin to sleep off whatever horrible experience it was that they encountered. Proteus worried about having a sudden tearing of Charisma from himself when the succubus - abandoned at the mayor's house - was killed and her favor revoked. Lavender Lil, chaotic woman that she is, got it in her head that since Lhye seemed a bit less tiefling-y following on from the Mythic ritual she didn't have to worry about him being a spouse abuser anymore and so tried to convince him to marry Alyssa. Marrying for wealth? Tick. For land? Tick. Into a respectable home? Tick. Possible grandchildren? Tick. Makes Lhye awkward to talk about? Tick. Proteus tried to help Lhye fend off his mother while Archer simply encouraged her. While Proteus declared that there would be no more weddings on his ship, Archer offered his services as celebrant. Alyssa put an end to it by simply saying, "No", before going back to research all of the paperwork brought to her by Lunjun from the mayor's home and his Chelish Crux. When they went to check on Cassilda and the nymph, they found that Cassilda wanted to go home. Wellard set a 'Detect Good' and 'Detect Evil' spells and used it on her, detecting that she was neither. There was some suspicion on Lhye's behalf that she might have some kind of magical item on her obscuring her alignment but that was quickly mooted when Lunjun tried to detect magic on Cassilda. Still unsure that there wasn't something 'wrong' or 'unusual' about someone who had accepted the offer of the mirror, Lunjun then used a spell to detect life auras and found that there were two. One on Cassilda and one inside her. Cue conversation about how Cassilda could be pregnant if she were a virgin? Cassilda was naturally quite shocked by all of this! Lhye used Divination on the topic and was granted a bit of an obscure hint, "The light may be passed to any who is willing, though the child may be crumbled and destroyed, what would tommorrow bring?" After a bit more conversation and musing, they figured that perhaps someone else could accept the 'pregnancy' on Cassilda's behalf. Proteus considered it quite strongly, feeling quite responsible for Cassilda's condition considering he had gotten her drunk in order to get her off his arm and then dragged her through the whole situation. Lhye, however, ended up giving it a go and touched Cassilda's shoulder, willing the 'burden' into himself. Hey presto! Lhye becomes a woman. It suits him, er her, and while Lhye finds the situation a little odd she isn't too fussed ... even by the idea of a divine pregnancy! Alyssa walks in at this point with the papers, having found a few important clues, and becomes very interested to meet this new woman. Lhye's sister, perhaps? When informed about what's just happened, that he has accepted a 'divine pregnancy' and become a woman, she naturally assumes it must be Cayden Cailean's (an assumption that Lhye's mother later holds). Alyssa recommends against going to the Westcrown temple of Shelyn due to the number of Thrune agents that may lurk within. She happens to know some oracular figures in both Varisia and Ustalav but doesn't know of any others. They all discuss the idea of finding a paladin to hold the child so that they have a good vessel for it. Lunjun suggests finding one at Lastwall, which both Alyssa and Lhye veto as the paladins up there kill tieflings at birth, so what would they do to a fully grown one? Lhye states that she's happy enough to carry it, though it will be disappointing not being able to drink alcohol or take drugs. Lhye seems a bit more at ease than usual. The mixture of having the infernal tie torn from his soul and now a literally different physicality to embody has given him the chance to behave a little differently and try on a different persona. Although her mixture of calm appearance plus sardonic demeanor does make her a little bit creepy when compared to his formerly 'dopey-teenager' mentality. Proteus notes that the knuckle bone in his hand seems to be vibrating and feeling strange and muses aloud that considering the strange repercussions that follow touching things ... perhaps some clue would occur if he touched her belly? Of course, there was no telling what the ramifications would be so they'd be best going somewhere uninhabited. Lunjun summons a magical carriage for the trip and they cross to the beach to try it out. Proteus' hand trembles quite a bit from the bone in his hand (he passes it off as nerves) as he reaches out to touch her belly and while nothing major happens, he does see that when his hand is closer to her he can see that she has a second shadow. Perhaps it isn't a 'pregnancy', after all, at least not in the traditional sense. Perhaps some aspect of the god (hopefully Dou-bral) has latched onto her. A second conduit, maybe. No one quite knew why it made Lhye female then. Perhaps it needs a feminine aspect to counterbalance its own masculine aspect? Or perhaps it was simply because it's first conduit was female so those thereafter would need to be? Who could say for sure? On the plus side, if the theory was true then at least Lhye could drink to her heart's content. Proteus decided that when they returned (via teleport) to Augustana he would try to get the rest of the Kuthite Saint's knucklebones from the Shelyn temple. He certainly had a Mythic chance of successfully convincing them. And that's where we left it. For those who are wondering, Lhye was originally conceptualised as a female character though that didn't eventuate and the character ended up quite different (and male). The (male) player is quite interested to see how this will play out and is interested at trying his hand at a female PC. Thus far he's been pretty successful at it and I (as a woman) have no complaints about his portrayal.