I mentioned a couple weeks ago that my wife Colleen and I had started an experiment combining Dungeons & Dragons, Minecraft and writing. Starting today, on the second Monday of each month, I plan to post an instalment of the story we are creating.
As we start out with this experiment, I'd really appreciate feedback, particularly:
-Are you enjoying the story (should I keep sharing it)?
-Are the instalments a good length (too shot, too long)?
-Do you want the story to be presented with or without the colour-coding we use to identify who is writing?
I should also warn you that this first instalment is longer than I intend the others to be.
Of Dice and Glen is a story being written following D&D 5th Edition rules and using Minecraft as the battle mat (and to set the scene). Each of the two writers control their own characters and share the job of Dungeon Master (controlling the environment, story, monsters and background characters). As a result, neither of us has any clue of what's going on or where this is going. So, let's have fun!
Episode 1: In a Quiet Forest
In the quiet forest, Shaddar tracked his quarry through the trees and into the clearing. His movements were fluid and confident. He knew he was getting close, in spite of the drizzle that was making tracking difficult. The silence of the woods told him everything he needed to know. Danger was near.
Suddenly the white dragonborn froze, his reptilian head cocked to one side. The gold patterning in his scales seemed to ripple as his mouth opened ever-so-slightly to allow his forked tongue to flick out, tasting the air.
Perched in a nearby tree, rain dripping off the end of her long tail, Luna Bootsnatcher watched the stranger in her forest with wide, curious, solidly black eyes. The rain was slowly washing away the mud she had smeared across the olive-hued skin of her cheeks and the unmistakable odor of wet leather mingled with the faintest whiff of wet dog around her. Her long, deep purple hair hung in flower-woven pieces around her strong shoulders, the blooms having faded somewhat since their adornment that morning.
“Dragon? No, dragonborn. But... White? Whites are crazy nasty. This one looks smart. Those gold eyes looking, always looking everywhere,” she muttered to herself, almost inaudibly as she crept forward on the branch. “What in the name of Mielikki is he doing in my trees?”
Casting about her, as if consulting unseen companions, Luna narrowed her black eyes.
“Lilacs,” she whispered, her gaze falling on the spring blossoms in a bush close by. “Beauty. Well, duh,” she gibbered, eyeing the brilliant way the little remaining sunlight glinted on the purest white and fiercely gold scales.
His bowstring taut, Shaddar whirled to look into the trees. He could see movement in amongst the branches, but he couldn't tell what was there. It didn't smell like the goblin he was tracking. Actually, it smelled worse.
“I know you’re there,” he said, but not so loudly that his nearby quarry might hear. “I can hear you, see you and smell you. Come out or be on your way before you scare off my prey.”
The branches shivered in irritation and indecision before parting at his last words. The wild, horned and mud-smeared head wore an unexpected grin.
“Play?!” It managed to whisper as the tiefling bounded from the tree to land quietly a few feet from the dragonborn. Cocking her head to one side, Luna remained crouched on the ground, one hand splayed as balance, between her bent legs, the other clutching a dagger, in a casual and non-threatening way.
The infernal offspring was attired in somewhat tattered and dirty traveling clothes, under an ordinary set of leather armour.
Shaddar frowned at the odd creature before him. He’d come across tieflings previously, but none as wild-looking as this one. He didn’t have the time to worry about her at the moment, though. The goblin he was hunting led a band that had been causing unforgivable damage throughout the woods and he was finally about to catch up with it.
“No, I can’t play right now,” he said offhandedly, “perhaps later. There’s a goblin I have to-”
Behind Shaddar, at the edge of the trees, a giant two-headed ettin seemed to appear out of nowhere, roaring.
Spinning to see the monster, the white dragonborn yelled, “Get back, tiefling!”
Seeing its adversaries, the ettin roared a challenge, stomped its feet and clapped its weapons together.
The young humanoid had been about to point out that killing a goblin was in fact play when her attention was distracted by the crashing and mellifluous odour of the obscene blight on her woods.
“Dragon dung beetles,” she swore, standing to her modest height and drawing out her shining scimitar. Where before had been a half-mad, dirty foundling, now stood a scrappy, if slightly naive, fighter. Luna was ready for action and in all likelihood would have faced off against this monster without the help of the shining dragonborn by her side.
Running forward, she held up a hand, suddenly brimming with fire that sizzled and licked at her palm without blackening or blistering the pale fawn skin.
“Which one of you is stupider?!” she screeched and hurled the fireball at the two tusked heads. The ball of fire blazed as it careened to the ground and died.
“I said get back,” Shaddar roared in frustration. “We’re no match for it!”
He knew it was too late, though. With her wild charge, the tiefling had committed to the battle and he couldn’t let the poor child fight and die alone. He sighted along his arrow shaft and let fly.
The arrow soared true and flew straight into and out of one of the monster’s heads, passing directly through without leaving so much as a mark, although the ettin now looked… different. It seemed slightly transparent and much less real.
The creature roared and stomped its feet again, showing no sign of noticing the attack.
“What…?” Shaddar breathed.
The headlong charge sent Luna’s tail lashing about her, rustling the grass and leaves as she passed the lilac bushes. Jumping slightly, she instinctively shied away from Shaddar’s arrow, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt when she saw it pierce the ugly head and speed right through.
“Nice shot!” she called over her shoulder to the confounded dragonborn.
As she approached the monster, she gave an animalistic snarl and slashed at it with her gleaming scimitar held high above her head. In her mad dash, she hadn't noticed the shimmer of the illusionary image.
The lucky star this mad tiefling was born under was glimmering brightly this day. The scimitar blade would have slanted harmlessly off the tough flanks of the ettin, had not the vicious attack slid directly through the projection of evil.
With an unintelligible screech, Luna stumbled through the make-believe foe and toppled to the forest floor in a heap, tail coiled elegantly over her, hooked over one horn.
“Magic?” Shaddar said, coming to understand the nature of the illusion. “I didn't take that goblin for a mage.”
Not entirely trusting the ettin to be as harmless as it appeared, the dragonborn carefully made his way around to where he could see the prone tiefling clearly. His tongue flicked in amusement at the position she was lying in.
“Are you okay?” he asked, attempting to hide the amusement in his voice.
Giggling along with him, Luna bounced to her feet and flicked her tail off the horn. Not bothering to brush herself off, she gave a cursory glance at the grass and dirt adhering to her.
“I'm great! Behold the new camouflage I gained, dragon-face!” She grinned at him.
“Camouflage,” Shaddar laughed, then chomped his pointed teeth at her playfully. “More like a grass stain, you little imp.”
Smiling at his reptilian humour, she turned back to the ettin they mercifully had not needed to fight, Sticking out one dirty hand, she waved it around inside the creature’s opaque belly-button.
“It’s about as real as a 2-gold coin,” she stated, rolling her eyes up and arching over, to peer upside-down at the dragonborn behind her, purple hair flopping down to briefly hide her small horns.
Walking over to join her, Shaddar also took a closer look at the monster, which was still roaring and stomping.
The miserably drizzling rain now was revealed to be falling straight through it, splashing to the grass beneath the giant feet. In the wet grass, there lay a face-down playing card.
“What’s this?” Shaddar asked, picking up the wet card.
The moment the card was moved, the illusory ettin vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Prancing over to peer down at the card as well, she sniffed at it distrustfully. Luna stowed her scimitar back in the makeshift sheath she had wedged between her back and her knapsack.
“No coincidence that ugly faker was roaring and stamping right on top of this thing,” she reasoned, glancing up at the white scaled stranger and cautiously taking a step back. She gave an automatic, flickering glance all around her, keeping exits through the trees fresh in her mind.
“I think you’re right,” Shaddar said, looking up from the card and out to the woods. His keen eyes scoured the trees and the ground, but between the rain and the distraction of the fake ettin, he had lost all traces of his quarry's tracks.
“It did its job, though,” he said, slight wisps of smoke rising from his nostrils. “That filthy goblin is long gone. It’ll take forever to pick up his trail again, if he hasn't covered it too well.”
The agitation in the new-comer to this branch of the forest was plain to see and Luna cocked her horns to one side, gazing more closely at the scaly one.
“Are you talking about the big goblin who’s been slaughtering my friends? The one who leads the bands who burn us? Chop us? Chase us?”
The tieflings black eyes, usually bright with a game or jest, hardened, flashed at the subject and burned at Shaddar. The long, dun coloured tail lashed in sudden anger and, though it was hard to distinguish with the falling rain, it seemed as though there may have been some moisture of rage seeping down Luna’s face.
Shaddar nodded. “I've been tracking him for days. They've been wreaking havoc across the forest and I mean to put a stop to it.”
“Hah!” she hooted, gleefully, crouching suddenly, as a child at play, vengeance now burning in her black gaze. “Together Mielikki can’t but see us prevail.”
Turning, she dashed for a tree, sticking out one hand to grasp a branch and swinging pull herself up and into the leaves. The wet bark loosened her grip and before she could stretch out her second hand, she was falling. With a wet, shuddering thud, she slammed bodily into the gathering mud under the grass. Wheezing for breath, she lay still, winded and dizzy, staring up into the gloomy, rain-filled sky.
“Together?” Shaddar asked, shaking his head at the tiefling energetic antics. He’d seen her create a magical flame so, admittedly, she had to have some sort of talent. He tended to work alone, though, and he liked it that way. “I don’t even know who you are - or if you would be of any help.”
“Ahr!” she grunted, resentfully, beginning to regain some breath. Head still spinning, the tiefling elected to remain prone on the ground for the time being. “‘nd I don’t know who y’are!” she returned, pointedly. “But I was gracious enough to invite you on my hunt. Where are your manners, smoky-nose?”
Climbing slowly to her feet, then, she managed a slight smile to show her latest jab was nothing more than a friendly remark on the waft of vapour that had recently escaped his flat nostrils.
“Your hunt?” Shaddar asked, his eyes narrowing. “You can’t even climb a tree, miss monkey-tail, and you think you can handle this goblin?”
“Miss monkey-tail?!” she repeated, in acid tones of deepest offense. “...I like that!” Like a sudden gust of wind, her mood changed and she laughed.
Cupping both hands around her mouth, she screeched “EVERYONE LOOK OUT! MISS MONKEY-TAIL’S ABOUT TO CLIMB A TREE AGAIN!”
This time however, she took a much less acrobatic approach. Striding confidently up to the same tree, long tail moving rhythmically through the grass, she grasped a low branch, close to the trunk, where it was dryer, and heaved.
With another splat and thud, Luna was once again winded, prone and even muddier than before.
“MOTHERLESS SON OF AN IRON GOLEM!” She screeched in outrage when she finally regained her voice. “TIGHT-PANTSED PRIVY CLEANER! DRUNKARD TEMPLE-ROBBING HALF-ORC!”
Shaddar stared aghast at the foul-mouthed child before him.
“If you were in my clan, the elders would be incinerating the inside of your mouth right now,” he commented with mild amusement.
After a few moments, Luna’s rage burnt down to a mere dull glow and she shook her purple-maned head.
“I declare that I no longer care about that tree!” she pointed an accusing finger up from where she lay. “It can burn in the nine hells for all I care! Each leaf can smoulder! Each branch can slowly flake off into tiny pieces of ash! Each-”
“Why were you even trying to climb it?” Shaddar asked, afraid this would go on forever.
“Hm?” she angled her face to look up at him. “Oh! This!”
Shifting around in the mud, she hooked a small, utilitarian whistle from her pack. Giving a few short blasts, the whistle sounded vaguely similar to a birdcall.
Very soon, a few gusts of rainy air indicated the arrival of a feathered friend of the forest. A magnificent black raven angled down from the canopy to land heavily on the tiefling stomach. Giving a perfunctory caw, the bird shook its damp feathers and regarded the prone humanoid with an intelligent, but unimpressed gaze.
Hurriedly pulling another item from her pack, this time a short wand of yew wood, Luna sat up, careful to allow the new arrival ample lap-space. She chanted the words to a spell and stowed the wand back in her pack.
“I'm sorry, say that again?” she asked, far more politely than any words she’d yet to speak to Shaddar.
The raven snapped its beak impatiently and repeated the caw.
“Ahr!” she grimaced, looking hurt. “It’s wet! I slipped and- Never mind,” she continued, with a glance at the dragonborn. “Please just tell me if you've seen a big goblin run by near here.”
There was no answering caw from the proud bird on Luna’s lap. It merely stared up at her, out of one eye, as if waiting for something.
Groaning, she allowed her head to flop back, in deep exasperation.
“Yes, very well. But only after you tell me what I want to know!”
The black head seemed to concede this point in negotiation and launched into a shrill series of caws. The tiefling frowned in deep concentration, nodding.
“Thank you,” she said, genuine gratitude ringing in her voice as she scooped the talons onto her arm and stood, turning to regard Shaddar with an unusually serious expression. “Writing Desk knows where the goblin went.”
Discover what happens next in
Episode 2: Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?
Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.
If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.
