Over the land of Aldaris a magical mist has fallen, trapping thousands within the country’s borders. Just as strangely, every man once welcomed within the nation was ejected suddenly. None have any recollection of how they came to be removed from Aldaris, but any man attempting to enter since has been rejected entirely. 

 

The King of Ovelia, the neighboring nation, took the wandering and confused men in with open arms. Once he understood that their stories lacked any sort of comprehension of what befell them, the king refocused his attention elsewhere, but not without first making an offer to all adventures of his lands: Any women to scout Aldaris and find what has happened there are to be rewarded with five hundred gold pieces for said information. If anyone should find a solution, their reward is increased twentyfold, and they will be granted a knighthood within the King’s knightly order.

 

You, brave adventurers, are one of the multitude of groups to decide to brave the mist covered lands. Miara, as the Archmagus’ apprentice, you were given the opportunity to leave for the mission before anyone else. You selected a team based off of a group of women you trusted most, so why don’t you each now introduce yourselves?

 

Miara speaks first, her voice giving the party the impression of an excitable young woman. She gives a slight curtsy as she speaks. “My name is Miara, and I’m the newest of Archmage Galahad’s apprentices. I’m a spellcaster by trade, and I’m incredibly lucky. I think my master expects me to, uh, meet the same fate as his many many many many previous apprentices, but I intend to prove him wrong!” 

 

Jace: How many previous apprentices did this guy have?

 

Michael: Jake rolled a D12 and got 12.

 

Sean: Dude, what the fuck.

 

Jake: Guys! Introductions!

 

Jace: Dude, Mikey can’t just introduce a fucking Hunger Games level of dead predecessors and go without being questioned.

 

Jake: Yes, he can! Now introduce Katryn already!

 

Speaking up just after her is a gruff dwarf woman covered in weapons. She has at least five axes visible, all of them of various sizes. “I’m Katryn Stone. Just Stone, no Crusher or Breaker or Maker or whatever. Need me to break a thing? I’ll do it. I’m really good at that.”

 

“And I am the mystical, the magical, the legendary Tiefling songstress Levari! My music is known and loved throughout the land, and I’m happy to sing songs and tell stories to brighten our adventure!”

 

“Oh, fuck, it my turn? Shit, uh. I’m Dani. I’m a rogue.”

 

 Jake: That’s it? Do you have a character description for the party?

 

Dan: Oh. Yeah.

 

Daniella is dressed a little too nicely for this bar, but despite this she blends in pretty successfully. Her brown hair is incredibly short, cut awkwardly as if done by an amateur. Her blue eyes speak of a history far deeper than should be discussed in pleasant company, but the fact that her hand is always either hovering over her sword or holding a beer mug should be answer enough. 

 

With your introductions made, you make your first steps towards your mission, and the fog seems to become more and more intimidating as you come closer to it. By the time you reach the border of Aldaris, the blue-grey swirls of mist seem to consume all in front of you. You can’t even see the pine trees or walls that once signified the border between these lands. What do you do?

 

“We came here for a reason. No sense in dallying.” Katryn throws caution to the wind as she enters, not even waiting for the party’s consensus.

 

“Whatever. Not like we’re in any danger anyway.” Daniella shrugs and heads off behind the barbarian, not the least bit afraid of some creepy fog.

 

Levari hesitates as she gets close to the fog, her normal self assurance muted. Slowly, tentatively, she reaches her hand out—

 

Only to be shoved in by Miara, who jumps in just after! “No time, Levy! We gotta go fast if we want those rewards!” 

 

Sean: Hey! I was having a moment!

 

Michael: You were!? Sorry, I thought you were being annoyingly contemplative like when you played Sara.

 

Sean: She was annoying? I didn’t know, I’m sorry.

 

Jake: Guys! 

 

Michael: Sorry!

 

Sean: Sorry!

 

As you all successfully pass through the fog, you catch sight of an almost unbelievably beautiful world. There are floating islands in the distance with massive and beautiful waterfalls. The trees seem to glow, their leaves a variety of greens, purples, and reds. Even the dirt path before you shines with a strange beauty. 

 

Before you have time to truly appreciate it, however, you hear the sound of hooves beating against the ground. What do you do?

 

Daniella finds a dark spot to hide in.

 

Jake: Roll for stealth.

 

Dan: 19

 

You find some brush that’s not quite as shiny as the others. The darkness hides you from prying eyes, but it’s only big enough to hide you.

 

Katryn stands her ground, an axe in each hand.

 

Since Miara can’t see Daniella, she’s going to stand beside Katryn, an eldritch blast prepared for if the approaching cavalry are immediately hostile.

 

Sean: Eldritch Blast? You’re a Warlock?

 

Michael: Uh, um, fuck. Maybe.

 

Sean: Did you not expect us to recognize the Warlock cantrip?

 

What does Levari do?

 

Oh! She also stands with the others. She’s got a fire bolt prepped.

 

Understood.

 

You three stand your ground while Daniella keeps herself safely hidden, and you quickly spot four heavily-armored women on massive warhorses. Each wields a halberd, but despite your hostile stance, none has their weapon aimed in your direction.

 

A woman with a red sash across her armor approaches first, and you can immediately tell that she doesn’t see you as a threat at all. “Halt! State your names and business!”

 

…

 

The group continued the session as their handful of fans listened and watched on, and Jake happily took note of the three new viewers in their audience. He wanted them to stick around after the session, but that was unlikely. Very few people involved themselves in postgame talk, and the new watchers were usually no exception. 

 

He was glad the group hadn’t immediately attacked the guards upon their arrival, and he was surprised when Dan made the decision to leave his hiding place and surrender with the others. Levari started flirting with the head of the guard almost as soon as she was tied up, so thankfully it seemed Sean got his steam back after his character’s moment was ruined and he was called annoying. 

 

Michael seemed to understand that what he’d said was wrong, as ever since then he was sticking almost exclusively to talking in character. That was good; Jake didn’t enjoy telling people when they fucked up. It was a necessity, especially as the DM, but that didn’t make it fun. Kicking out Lauren, one of their original players, during their last campaign had been incredibly draining despite how much of a necessity it was. 

 

Partially because of banter and partially because of Levari’s constant flirting, the session tremendously slowed, and they had to cut it just as the party was taken to the local fort’s prison. Jake was a bit disappointed, he had been yearning to play the fort captain since he created her, but one more session without playing her wouldn’t hurt.

 

Jake was relieved when he saw Michael pull Sean aside to talk as the others packed. He was probably apologizing for earlier, which was a surprisingly mature decision for him. Michael usually tended to pretend a problem wasn’t his to deal with even if it was his fault. Jake had hopes that this was the first in a long set of steps towards maturity. 

 

Jace and Dan weren’t doing too much talking, but then they rarely did outside of the game. Dan wasn’t much for speaking up unless it was a subject he was interested in, and Jace felt a strong distaste for his own voice that Jake secretly shared. When talking in character, Jace even went so far as to give himself a more feminine sounding voice. It was surprisingly excellent, which made Jake wonder how long he’d been practicing, and if his own attempts were half as real-sounding.

 

Speaking of voice training, Jake still needed to make sure the boundaries on Sean’s character were clear. He really didn’t like the idea of a cis guy playing a trans girl, especially when one of their own stream mods was trans himself, but Sean was incredibly invested in the idea and was not the type of person to be shitty about trans people. In the end, Jake agreed to allow it so long as Sean made sure to be as considerate and accurate towards trans experiences as possible. They’d also informed the chat before the session for the sole purpose of making sure they didn’t fuck up without being called out.

 

As soon as Sean and Michael ended their conversation, Jake slipped into Michael’s place. Sean had one of those precious smiles of his, which forced Jake to look to the side for fear of Sean catching him blush. It was not the time for his stupid crush to get to him, he needed to be serious.

 

“So… this about Levari?” Sean asked before allowing even a moment of silence for Jake to control his gay little heart. Of course he’d be right to the point, he was always frustratingly like that when it was about something he liked.

 

Jake eventually managed to slowly nod, still without looking in Sean’s direction. Eventually, after allowing time to collect himself, Jake spoke up. “Yeah I just, y’know, wanted to keep making sure we were doing her justice.” Jake made sure to emphasize the ‘we’ in his statement; he didn’t want Sean to feel like all the pressure was on him.

 

Sean seemed lost in thought for a few seconds, and that silence allowed Jake to finally collect himself enough to look back at his best friend. Another few seconds after Jake resumed acting like a normal person, Sean provided his answer. “I’ve been making sure, I promise. I’m just worried about when she meets her mom. I don’t know if either of us will be able to do that dysphoria and transphobia the right way, y’know? It feels like we’re appropriating these real people’s struggles for plot points.”

 

Jake nodded along in understanding, but couldn’t provide much of an answer to that issue. They were kind of appropriating the struggles of real trans people for this character, whether they did it justice or not. Luckily they still had at least a dozen sessions before Levari’s mom was even brought up, so they had plenty of time to decide whether or not to retcon her out of existence. “Alright, I guess we’ll just keep it as is for now. I’ll probably talk to you again as we get closer to meeting her mom.”

 

They split up as soon as Sean agreed, leaving Jake almost thankful to be separated. His crush had gotten so much worse lately and he didn’t get why. They’d been friends since they were kids, and Sean had never been all that interesting to him until suddenly he was really interesting. Jake could easily keep his feelings under control while with others, but being alone together made it almost impossible.

 

“Boys! It’s eleven! You in combat?” Jake heard his mother yell down the stairs to them, glad she was still willing to be lenient if there was a fight happening. Nerds made excellent parents to other nerds, it turned out. 

 

Jake looked to the others, and it seemed everyone was already packed, ready to go. Even Dan, for all of his laziness, was prepped to go. Once Jake saw that all of their dice and backpacks were away he yelled back up the stairs. “We’re done, Mom! Just saying goodbye!” 

 

Everyone seemed a bit uncomfortable to leave, but like always, that discomfort stemmed primarily from Sean and Dan. Jake didn’t know why Dan seemed so upset, but he assumed Dan just didn’t like getting up and driving home. Dan always came off as averse to things that took effort, plus he apparently wasn’t allowed to even use a computer at home. 

 

Jace, Michael, and a reluctant Dan were out the door within a few moments, with Sean following behind after he and Jake shared a hug. Jake let go and wished their hug could have been so much longer.

 

As soon as Sean was out the front door, Jake locked up and headed up to tell both of his moms goodnight. He still planned to browse a subreddit he had recently found, but that was easy to do within his room.  He almost, but not quite, forgot to check out the stream chat, and pulled up the logs.

 

> AnonymousReptile: kind of a short session but ok

> dndumber: session zeros qre usually not thqt long

> AnonymousReptile: got a borked keyboard, dnd? :p

> dndumber: put it in your qss

> GifRaff: dude, relax

> xDarkWolfx: chill yall. I kinda like this module. I think its homebrew?

> AnonymousReptile nods

> AnonymousReptile: it’s based off a couple modules

> GifRaff: I think there’s some curse of rumenterra in there

> AnonymousReptile: yeah 

> AnonymousReptile: the women-only campaign is kinda new

> dndumber: kinda gey ngl

> xDarkWolfx: ignoring that

> GifRaff: I’m not

> xDarkWolfx: anyway yeah it’s cool

> xDarkWolfx: not sure how I feel about sean playing levari as trans

> dndumber: yeqh. y is he plqying q mentqlly ill chqrqcter?

> xDarkwolfx: dude wtf

> AnonymousReptile: shut up incel

> dndumber: lmqo triggered much

> AnonymousReptile: giffy pls

> GifRaff: On it

> dndumber has been banned for 31,247,890 hours (reason: shut up incel)

> xDarkWolfx: thanks guys

> Gifraff: Hey, this is a small community, but the guys don’t tolerate that shit

> Gifraff: And neither do we

> xDarkWolfx: <3

> AnonymousReptile: <3

> GifRaff: speaking of which. 

> GifRaff: feel free to invite friends if they’re into tabletop

> xDarkWolfx: you guys are cool

> AnonymousReptile: you too :)

> AnonymousReptile: the guys are cool

> AnonymousReptile: this is their third campaign together?

> Gifraff: fourth

> Gifraff: last one in high school

> Gifraff: time flies 

> Gifraff: I’m old T-T

> xDarkWolfx: how old are u?

> Gifraff: 21 :p

> xDarkWolfx: lmao

> xDarkWolfx: I love Katryn

> AnonymousReptile: yo same

> xDarkWolfx: that’s jace right?

> xDarkWolfx: they seem like a cool gang

> AnonymousReptile: they are!

> Gifraff: we all are!

> AnonymousReptile: \o/

> xDarkWolfx: it’s good to meet you guys ^w^

> AnonymousReptile: you too man (:

> xDarkWolfx: not a man >:3

> AnonymousReptile: oh soz

> AnonymousReptile: you too gal :)

> xDarkWolfx: thank u :3

> xDarkWolfx: imma head off

> xDarkWolfx waves

> xDarkWolfx has quit (Connection quit by host)

> AnonymousReptile: she seems nice :)

> Gifraff: Yeah. Anyway, I’m going to head out too.

> Gifraff has quit (Connection quit by host)

> AnonymousReptile has quit (Connection quit by host)