Bjørn Røyrvik's page

Is it good if you didn't care for Vision at all, and thought the only good bits of Wandavision were when it was stuck in the 50s and 60s?

Work on Saturday. Three people called in sick, of course.

Sunday I visited my parents, who are home after a month abroad, went with them to another fleamarket (it's fleamarket season here in Norway) and played Cosmere RPG in the evening.

I remember it well.

"Searoad" was good. It's a series of vignettes about people in the fictional Oregon town of Klatsand, based on an area le Guin knew well. There are three primary characters and a few supporting ones, with each 'story' a snap shot of a time. Nothing supernatural here, nothing magical other than le Guin's prose (this is some of her most evocative work).

Themes of motherhood, feminism, art and more are explored, and it can occasionally get a bit rough emotionally. One reason I prefer fantasy and science fiction over realistic fiction is that violence and abuse seems that much more unreal with the layer of magic in there. While le Guin never dwells on the rape and abuse, it is there and it is unpleasant.

On to William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, a classic in the field. It's been gathering dust on my shelf for twenty years or more, after gathering dust on my mother's shelf for at least as long.

Its October.

Im watching Yamishibai, Yamizukan, Hell Girl, and most importantly, Hengen Taima Yakō Karura Mau!

I've only watched Hell Girl of those. The last season was a bit of a let-down but the show was pretty good for being so formulaic..

Just finished "Deadhouse Gates", and it was good. I enjoyed it more than "Gardens of the Moon", possibly because I'm more familiar with some of the characters and the world, possibly because I liked the new characters introduced. Still not to the point where I love the series, it's a step above mediocre now. I have the third book waiting for me in The Pile, but for now I'm on to Ursula le Guin's Searoad.
I have no clue what it's about but I expect to like it. As much as I love Tanith Lee, I suspect I have yet to come across an author as consistently good as le Guin.

Yard work canceleld because of rain (yay) and flea market cancelled because of rain (boo).
Technically the market wasn't cancelled but I didn't want to walk in cold wind, pissing down rain and occasional bouts of slush for 15 minutes each way.

Some house work, possibly some yard work after real work today. Make dinner and do some shopping for my parents tomorrow morning so they have something waiting for them when they get home after a month abroad, a flea market tomorrow afternoon where I hope to increase my excessive amount of books, then game night on Sunday.

The Magic Knight Rayearth reboot has started, and my wife is very happy. I read the manga a few years ago so I'm watching this just to spend time with her. It seems very faithful to the original, including the CLAMP art style, and it kept the original intro song, which was a nice touch.

It looks like it will be fun, certainly, and I liked Nosferatu. Haven't seen his other stuff but I will get around to some day.

No you didn't, which is one of the dumb reveals I mentioned.
I think it was supposed to be the goop portal, but I was under the impression that they had to be moved in real space to work.

The last episode was a bit of a let-down. Too many dumb reveals and dumb decisions made by people.

An oldie from when we played a Vampire: the Masquerade game.

(to the tune of Masquerade from Phantom of the Opera)

Masquerade! Break it once or twice per day!
Masquerade! Look out, there's a journalist behind you.

IMO, either keep it entirely in present day English or go full Middle English. This is just half-assing it.

Season 3 of both Apothecary Diaries and Ranma 1/2 are the only ones that jump out at me. I might give Magical Explorer and Dark Summoner a try.

There's also an Apothecary Diaries movie coming out, along with a Made in Abyss movie, both of which I will watch. The Made in Abyss manga is still mostly good though the author's loli fascination is getting more and more blatant, to the point where I'm having a hard time ignoring it in favor of the good weirdness.
There's also an Armored Trooper VOTOMS movie coming out, but I have no idea where that fits in to the timeline, and since I'm only just barely done with the original series, the movie might have to wait.

Ah, the Laundry Files. Good series. Haven't gotten around to reading the Regicide Report yet. I do think the series suffered a bit as it developed (in part due to Stross wanting to do other things but also wanting to eat, and satire is hard to do when reality gets dumber all the time) but it has remained enjoyable throughout.

I'm a big proponent of subtitles and I like dedication to period accuracy. Passion of the Christ, artistic and religious issues aside, had the right idea having Latin and Arameic dialogue.

Work today, then Cosmere rpg on Sunday.

I finally got around to watching the trailers, and I'm a bit disappointed that it's so easily understood. It's basically modern English at this point. Apparently they modernized it a bit, which kind of ruins the whole point of going for period accurate language.

I can hallucinate quite well on my own. I don't need to drive up the prices of computer parts, waste precious water, and support an insane triangle scheme to GM.

Some other takes on the trolley problem

The OP is too vague to give a definite answer to.

I've thrown similar threats at my PCs, and one of them was a paladin.
Short version: the PCs were harrassing a cabal of powerful wizards and though the PCs were protected by things like Mind Blank, their domains weren't, so the Baddiers sent combined wraithpocalypses/demon invasions to distract the PCs.
The PCs were then left with the choice of protecting their domains and letting the baddies prepare more or get away entirely, or hope that their domains could tank the nastiness for a time while they took care of the baddies.
The paladin didn't fall when she elected to leave her domain to be ravaged for a bit while she and her friends went for the source. The natural consequences of the populace' reaction to her 'abandoning' them while death and undeath stalked the country was bad enough. Her guilt
To mangle a quote, it's hard for a good person to be a ruler.

IMG when faced with problems that have no good solution, PCs will not be punished for making a choice so long as the choice is well-reasoned and not obviously a worse one than they should be able to make.
In the case of the trolley problem, a paladin would not be sanctioned for either of the standard choices. Repercussions will occur if their choice is to tie more people to the tracks.

As far as I'm concerned: feature, not bug*.
One thing I dislike is a lack of change in game play as the game progresses. If the difference between 1st level play and 20th level play is just numbers, that at first level you fight a 1 HD orc in a 10x10' room and get 100 gp, and at 20th you fight 20 HD orc in a 200'x200' foot room and get 2000 gp, it's really unfulfilling.

I think following some old school D&D assumptions is right thing here. In BECMI at least, it was assumed that around a certain level you would more or less settle down and take on more social roles in the setting. High level play wasn't just murder-hoboing, you had responsibilities. I did this in my game, and when you have to spend time and money and effort on making you little community in the world flourish, lots of the problems aren't the type of thing you can just cast a spell at and have them disappear**.

At the higher levels of play, the opponents are higher level too and can take appropriate steps to avoid being undone by a single spell. Lots of these spells and abilities aren't perfect.
E.g. divinations. There are limits to divinations. Range limits, obfuscation limits like Mind Blank or thin sheet of lead, and most importantly: knowledge limits for spells like Commune or Contact Outer Plane. D&D gods are on the whole not omniscient. There are things they don't know, there are things that are hidden from them, there are things they hide from others. The sorts of issues high level PCs get involved in increasingly fall into these categories. This isn't to say that every diviantion should fail but some should and many will give less information than the PCs would like.

But if this isn't the type of thing you like or feel comfortable running, it is important to remember that D&D is a toolbox: you don't need to use every tool in the box if you don't want to. This requires a thorough think-through of what you want to ban or alter and why, and basic limits on mechancis should ideally be decided on before the game starts and the world should reflect the limits.

*This attitude runs in into one of the many You're Doing It Wrong Problems: anyone who can't handle what I can needs to 'git gud' and anyone who runs D&D at higher power levels is a filthy power gamer who doesn't know how to have fun at proper power levels.

**Well, you can but consequences often turn out to be more problems down the line.

"Stone and Sky" was another Rivers of London book. They are easy reading and entertaining. They make for a good book when you want something easy and fun, but they are not anywhere near the best stuff out there.

On to something that is not easy, The Deadhouse Gates, the second Malazan Book of the Fallen, by Steven Erikson.

That's a shame. We liked it more than anything else Marvel has done in recent years.

New Cat Species Identified for the First Time in Over 100 Years

I was quite happy when I heard the news.

I have finished Reign of Stars. I'm left with the question--the same question I have after any Society scenario involving Numeria--of "How does anyone ever survive the Iron Gods AP when you have [BLEEP]ing giant war robots flying around blasting people to atoms?" (And that's a rhetorical question, BTW, so please don't post any spoilers!)

Hit Points and Evasion.

I found myself arguing against Marcus on many, many points. I guess I'm too much a product of my time to be able to agree with early philosophers. I will agree that to a degree we can influence what we think and how we feel about certain things, and being able to be calm and accepting of unpleasant things will generally lead to a more pleasant life than getting riled up over everything.

On to Ben Aaronovitch's Stone & Sky, the most recent Rivers of London novel. They are good palate cleansers. I considered going on the book two of the Illuminatus trilogy, "The Golden Apple" but I'm frankly unsure if I want to finish it.

There are a few ways to do it, but all will be heavily gear-dependent.
Things like Bracers of Armor, Amulets of Natural Armor, magical shields, etc.

Lots of feats like Dodge, Shield Specialization, etc.

How much 3rd party or homebrew is allowed?
You have a few things like Unarmeored Specialist
and the improved version.

"The Eye in the Pyramid", first of the Illuminatus trilogy, was a thing. It was deinitely a thing.
I don't think I liked the thing.

A bunch of bland protagonists, a lot of weirdness and not exactly good weirdness. There was one bit where they were very self-aware and self-referential about the quality of the book and one bit towards the end that got about as profound as you can expect from what is basically a farce.

I will probably try to finish the trilogy since I already have it but I doubt I would buy the other books on the strength of the first.

On to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. It's s hort little work and I'm already about a fourth of the way through. I can see why it has had some enduring popularity over the centuries.

Get hold of a bunch of old Ravenloft books for good explorations of what this looks like for D&D. the "van Richten's Guide to Vampires/Werebeasts/Liches/Ancient Dead/etc." for psychology of the beasties, some of the Ravenloft novels for explorations of what it is like "Heart of Midnight" or "Vampire of the Mists" (supplemented by character bios in RPG material). The old BECMI supplement "Creature Crucible: Night Howlers", though written from a Mystaran POV and with BECMI rules, has some good ideas for how to adapt and play lycanthropes in D&D games with some grounding in the world and cultures for them.

I can't see it on the coming films here in Norway either, which is a disappointment.

After defeating the baddies, the party investigates the hideout and finds the remains of a bracelet belonging to Drecissa along with a number of messages that are conveniently informative, giving us a few names and hints about things to come and where to go next.
They return to the town watch and share the information, then everyone heads straight to the next target.

On the way they are, predictably, ambushed but the ambushers are easily handled. Two of the watch are wounded and head back to base. The final confrontation with Naqualia and someone called Vellik whom I instantly rename Vallak (‘gelding’ in Norwegian). The two are fighting when we arrive but they decide to put aside their differences and kill us first. The fight is a bit finicky, with Naqualia’s Displacement saving her from lots of damage from Bo-bi’s charge and crits with a lance. Vallik has a high AC and only with the buffs from Josephine did Tibor manage to do much by the way of damage. Josephine’s newly acquired trick of boosting all healing done quite significantly, plus Vår’s Unicorn sorcerer bloodline abilities kept the party quite safe in what would otherwise have been a pretty nasty fight.

The entire party survives, including the two watchmen with us, and the two baddies go down in the same round. We loot the bodies and the session ends there. We level to 12th, and a few weeks of break while the DM gets a bit of a rest. Bo-bi’s player will run Cosmere for us in the mean time.

All in all a fun session. Sylvia’s player was absent, leaving me with playing Sylvia. Every single round I forgot I was supposed to be doing that and had to be reminded.

Are you asking if you could replace Golarion vampires with Kindred and the Curse of Caine and the titular Masquerade, or something else?

I am currently reading The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The Mostly True Story of the First Computer, by Sydney Padua.

My sister gave this one to me and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think my favorite part was "Mr. Boole Comes to Tea". I thank the introduction to formal logic I took at university for actually understanding the joke.

"10 000 light years from home" was almost like reading a new book since I had forgotten most of the stories, despite reading them only ten years or so ago, perhaps less.

On to the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shae and Robert Anton Wilson. Like "The Ruins of Ambrai" that I read a year or two ago, this is one book that I remember from decades ago, enticing me on the shelf of my FLGS. I prioritized other things with my limited wealth, so when I found this at the used book store a few months back, I picked it up.

After defeating the broken soul’d couatl, Vår teleports to Thincol’s Jewel to inform the rescued sailors of the fate of their friends. They are understandably depressed but not surprised. There she and Lucius wait until next morning so he can get some Lesser Restorations from the colony priests. Meanwhile Tibor and Sylvia discuss what to do with the dead sailors. They almost certainly worshipped one of the Immortals of the sea, most likely Minroth, with a side of Protius. Dragging the corpses through the jungle is too much effort if they want to keep an eye on the unconscious couatl, and Aidu would be more inclined to eat the corpses if he could be bothered to carry them, so they decide to bury the sailors. They ask the guardian first if that’s OK, and it says that it is. Tibor holds a little burial service which amounts to “I hope whatever Immortals you worshipped in life look kindly on your souls.”
Not a great service but it is something.

The next day Sylvia has prepared a bunch of Pressure Adaptation for the party to help with the pressure change. Vår takes Tibor and the couatl with her first Teleport. Back in Talasantri the two of them are quickly granted an audience with Rillkimatai, who first inquires after the Wavewander’s lance and is relieved to hear that the other party members have it. He then listens carefully to the Vår’s explanation of what happened to the couatl and says he has no clue how to help, but he will keep it restrained and see if he and the other powerful casters in town can do something for it.

When the rest of the party arrives Rillkimatai wishes to see the legendary weapon with his own eyes. Satisfied that we have upheld our end of the bargain he (from a metagame POV very predictably) lets Bo-bi keep it since we are obviously going to go fight the plankta. He then hands over the information, which was not a lot but at this point anything is better than nothing. He also mentions that the city watch has found a few leads on the people that tried to frame the party for the assault on Anemora’s party, primarily a name: Naqualia.

The party intends to look into that but first decide to visit Jurix in the Undersea and hand over the weapon she wanted. It leaves a bad taste in Tibor’s mouth to work with criminals but the weapon, while useful, was not particularly evil and likely wouldn’t make her too much more powerful. Jurix was as good as her word and the party sold off the loot at a fair price. Way, way too much time was spent discussing whether the Bracelet of Friends and Mace of Smiting would be useful to keep. Bo-bi’s player argued most strenuously to sell it, on the grounds that we haven’t met anything but nice constructs so far and in previous campaigns we end up with a ton of stuff that is never used. It’s better to just get money for it and buy stuff we want. Despite the older players saying the items may prove useful some day, Bo-bi’s player waved them off with the fateful question “When are we ever going to need them?”
Experienced players will be wincing already. After all these years you would think that this player would not utter such phrases as “When are we ever going to need that?” While not as dire a challenge as variants of “This is very easy” or “Things can’t possibly get any worse”, this is just begging the Multiverse to smack you in the face.

The party sells the items and takes the money, and heads back to Anemora to pay their respects before heading off. Bo-bi also wants to say goodbye to his summer flirt. I have recently read two stories by Tanith Lee which are two different takes on what humans having sex with a mermaid would look like, and both cases were rather disturbing, so I shuddered at the romance even if it, so far, has not progressed to that stage. Anemora is outside when the PCs arrive, talking to some guards and is visibly upset. Once she catches sight of the PCs she starts yelling at the party that her little girl disappeared because she wanted to help them. Apparently Dricissa vanished after expressing interest in helping the PCs and finding out who attacked her home. Sighing, the PCs realize that their return to Thincol’s Jewel and pursuit of the aboleths will have to wait a bit longer. They talk to the city watch about the information they had on Naqualia and now take part in a raid on the slums of the city where the do-badders are supposedly hiding. Some comments were made about how the city watch was very willing to let aliens do their work for them and I was told to be quiet.

The hideout of the nefarious crew we were looking for was easily discovered with Vår’s impressive Diplomacy being put to use gathering information.The barracuda on guard outside was also easily spotted and easily dispatched despite it hurting Aidu a bit. The building we were to raid looked unremarkable but had a very good lock on it - good enough that Josephine could not pick it. The door and walls were also reinforced and hacking through took a long time.
“If only we had something made of adamantine to bypass the hardness,” Bo-bi’s player said, knowing full well why we don’t. This does not prevent the other players from pointing out why we don’t. The PCs enter and find the hidden tunnel down underground and have to leave Aidu behind in the main tunnel since there is a long, narrow tunnel that he would have to squeeze through and be very vulnerable should we encounter enemies in it. Bo-bi’s player again bemoans the design of adventures to prevent him from charging enemies.

Predictably the party runs into a group of enemies. Tibor, fortunately, led the way so his high AC, uncanny dodge and 25% fortification allowed him to avoid much of the damage the enemies would have done to anyone else in the party. The fight is a pain, especially when two of the enemy get Stoneskin to reduce damage. “If only we had an adamantine weapon,” three players say wistfully. Bo-bi’s player replies with exasperated invective. The three non-Bo-bi players conveniently ignore that we went along with selling the Mace of Smiting, and are happy to lay all the blame on Bo-bi’s player. Ultimately the party triumphs and the session ends.

I finished up "The Weird Tales of Tanith Lee" and I liked every bit of it. Some stories were better than others, all were good.
My To Read pile is put on hold as I reread James Tiptree Jr.s (pseudonym of Alice Sheldon) short story collection 10 000 light years from home
. I decided to revisit this one since I wanted to reread the story "The snows are melting, the snows are gone", which I recently learned was a major inspiration for Tsutomu Nihei's "Blame!". He even quotes it in the manga, which I didn't pick up on when I read it, which means I will probably soon be rereading Blame! as well.

And of course once I've read one of Sheldon's stories I may as well read the entire book, because she was a good writer.

The essences of magic and psionics are wholly different. A wizard or cleric who can detect magic will never detect psionics.

3e assumes transparancy.

I miss 2e psionics, janky and weird as it was.

Dammit.
RIP.

"Five ways to forgiveness" was very good. I might even venture it's some of the best Le Guin has done, which is saying something. It was a tad more graphic than she usually does, with sex being a direct issue in a few cases, and rape being brought up a lot. Not surprising since the stories are set around a slave revolt. It's the stort of book that I probably wouldn't have liked as much when I was younger but which resonate more the older I get. Strongly recommended.

Now to finish "The Weird Tales of Tanith Lee". Several of the stories are ones whose idea was gotten from her husband John Kaine. I've felt I should give him a try for some time now, and that feeling has gotten stronger after reading these stories.

F+&* cancer.
RIP.

Please note that Pharasma and the nicities of Golarion-verse alignment are non-issues since we play in Mystara.

A truly admirable person. RIP.

How the hell does Hal not have his battery with him?

My impression of this Hal is that he is rather disenchanted with the whole Corps. He is still a GL because he's dedicated enough time to it and doesn't know how to quit, but he is obviously still traumatized by Sinestro. Possibly he doesn't trust the Guardians for some reason, as evidenced by his refusal to back up his memory core, and his fear the John had gone straight to the Guardians with the Manhunter info. As a result, he is somewhat rebellious and doesn't want to be reminded of his connection with the GLC.

How the hell does John maintain a construct without a ring?

Yeah, I don't have a good explanation for this one. They're probably gonna give us some sort of "he's super special" nonesense.

How can anyone get away with shooting a hero IN FRONT OF THE SHERIFF?!?

The guy who runs the entire town? The guy who has a lot of resources the sheriff can't match? The guy who has emotional leverage over the sheriff by being her father in law? The guy who could kick her out and keep her from her son? Over the idiot who the sheriff doesn't like and who ignored her advice and got himself shot despite the warnings?

Now the fact that one GL already died here and wounding, potentially killing a second while a third is in the wings and knows something weird is going on, that is an issue. But it is an issue I put down to dumb minions doing dumb stuff and not what the Manhunter would have done.

Who approved that godsawful Lantern uniform?

I'm with you on this one. For all the hate the Ryan Reynolds movie gets, I liked the suit.

How the hell does Hal not know about Manhunters when he's been a Green Lantern FOR OVER 20 years?!?

Maybe this version of the Guardians don't tell their Lanterns about the Manhunters, for whatever reason.

Glad you're back. Good bettering.

Wish or Miracle might do the trick.

Apart from that, I would require several powerful spells, like Heal, Break Enchantment, Greater Restoration, and Atonement, or some combination of these, in a specfic order and possibly with some extra costly components.

Perhaps something like this:
1. Speak With Soul to have some meaningful communication with the victim with a Diplomacy check to convince them to accept the healing process
2. Break Enchantment to open up the victim to healing
3. (Heal +) Greater Restoration to "restore to factory settings"
4. possibly Atonement to help them forgive themselves for the evil they committed while Broken. and get spellcasting abilities back.

Possibly with expensive components and lengthy ritual along the way.

My wife and I watched the first episode yesterday. Neither had much by the way of preconceptions or spoilers going in and we ended up liking it. Nothing surprising going on but well made.

My knowledge of Hal is pretty much limited to the various animated movies and series so I don't know how this version relates to the comic self, but I was initially uncertain if I liked him but warmed up to him by the end.
I really hope this rather uncertain version of John ends up like the JL/DCAU (my only real exposure to that character but he was so awsome in that I have a hard time picturing him any other way).

This runs quickly into the problem of not enough skill points. Most people might be able to get really good at one or two skills but not have enough skill points to be good at more than that where under the current system they can be decent at more skills.

I don't have a problem with things as they are. The game is built around adventurers, and as far as I'm concerned NPCs can have whatever skill modifiers they need to be as good as they are at whatever they want to do and not need to worry about their combat abilities. The way I see it, most DCs for skills that people face in everyday life will be between 10 and 15, going up to 20 on rare occasions), which means that with some training will be able to do their job reasonably well with the existing system, with the occasional chance of failure on the really difficult rolls. PCs use a lot of the training on combat and reduced focus on skills is a result. NPCs can easily ignore combat and focus on skills, and you can give them whatever abilities and skills you want.

If you want actual rules rather than "just give them whatever, man" how about upgrading the Expert? Give them a number of Skill Focus and the "+2/+4 to 2 skills" feats as bonus feats, and possibly a "+1/class level to skill" ability a la Bardic Knowledge that applies to a small number of chosen skills?

The party rests and the next morning the guardian guides them to the next site. On the way they meet two blood lilies that Sylvia fails to notice until they get close enough to attack. No one else notices them either but we blame Sylvia since she’s the druid and supposed to know about plants and stuff. They do a significant amount of poison damage to the party. Delay Poison saves the party’s bacon since it takes a total of six Neutralize Poisons to neutralize the poison due to some really bad rolls. Lucius’ Constitution is sorely reduced and he Teleports back to Thincol’s Jewel to recover. Three players fondly remember the days when Cure Disease and Neutralize Poison did what they were supposed to without having to roll to see if you were successful. The GM and the other player get annoyed with grumpy middle aged men talking about how things were better in the old days.

The party reaches their goal without any more interruptions. The small shrine is an obvious site, with the ground around a dry, blasted area where nothing grows. The party nears it but Sylvia notices a Symbol of Strife protecting the entrance and prevents people from getting close enough to trigger it. They pull back well out of sight and let Tibor approach to scout the interior, trusting in his Will save to keep him safe from the Symbol, and his AC to keep him safe should he fail his save and attack any enemies there might be inside. Tibor approaches the shrine and makes his save, and tries to figure out how to cover or destroy the Symbol. It turns out he would be reduced to trying to scratch it out with his dagger since he has no other useful tools available and he rejects the idea as too much effort. Instead he looks inside the shrine and is put off by the smell of rotting meat. Two animated corpses move to attack him and he draws them out to his companions rather than try to face them alone. They follow him and are taken care of by the party, though they deal a little damage. Tibor heads back into the shrine and fails his save against the Symbol this time, and charges the party. There is a tense moment as everyone remembers how he downed three party members in three rounds last session but Josephine saves the day by casting Invisibility Sphere and hiding everyone else. Tibor spends a minute calming down and apologizes. A few minutes are spent figuring out the best way of disarming the Symbol until Tibor looks at his body and notices he is wearing a Robe of Useful Items. Among the useful items is a door. The GM likes the idea of it being a Looney Tunes door, so he slaps a door on the featureless rear wall, and hey presto! the back of the small shrine suddenly sprouts a door which the rest of the party enters, bypassing the Symbol.

The party looks at the decor and Tibor recognizes this as a shrine to Sasskass the Destroyer, patron of devilfish and a generally unpleasant sort. There is a staircase leading down and the characters descend into the depths of the earth….or a couple of meters at least.
Down below there is an alter with signs of much animal sacrifice. The place smells bad but not quite so bad as it could have; the dominant smell is stagnant salt water rather than rotting flesh. Tibor notices a small concealed panel in the alter but decides to check out the side tunnel before opening it. The tunnel opens into a large shallow pool and a feathered serpent with bleeding eyes attacks. Josephine identifies the creature as a couatl that has been horrifically tortured and broken in spirit, and shares the information with the party. The rest of the party deals lethal damage but Tibor switches to non-lethal in hopes of taking the couatl alive and curing it. To be fair, he is the only one who can easily switch to non-lethal damage so this is not too much of a black mark against the rest of the party. A little damage is taken during the attempt and a couple of the party are a little scared, but the couatl is safely subdued and the party loots the place. They do manage to set off a Blade Barrier when investigating the alter but everyone survives.

The rest of the session is spent trying to figure out how to cure the couatl. They are unsure what needs to be done but assume a Heal is the minimum level of magic required, and no one they know on the surface can cast that. Their best chance is Rillkimatai. Tibor advocates heading down as fast as possible to avoid letting the couatl wake up and be more of a problem, but without Stabilize Pressure or Life Bubble available, teleporting down now would probably spell instant death for everyone involved. The GM ends the session here since she will have to figure out what needs to be done to fix the poor couatl, and we were nearing the end of the evening in any case.

Another third of the way through "The Weird Tales of Tanith Lee" and they continue to be good. She has managed to write two stories about what sex with a mermaid would be like, in two different collections, each unpleasant and creepy in their own way.

A quick break with Ursula LeGuin's Five Ways to Forgiveness. I've read a couple of the stories before but a couple are new or at least forgotten. As it says on the tin, forgiveness is a theme. These are stories in the Hainish cycle and while they are standalone, knowing "The Left Hand of Darkness" and especially "Planet of Exiles" will give a richer experience.