Memories

(This has absolutely nothing to do with the post; it's just a masterful performance. Elaine Paige's singing and acting are top notch.)

One of my favorite pastimes while working on a story is imagining how that story will end and what the "after" story entails. Running with the assumption that everyone will survive, what will the characters go off and do once they've handled the story's main threat?

For the longest time, I struggled to imagine the kind of life Cael would want to lead after our "Skies Over Aefala" campaign finishes. I could see them traveling the world some more in search of prospective students for the College of Arcane Studies. I could see them starting something akin to Exandria's Cobalt Soul from the Critical Role campaigns (though something about that didn't sit quite right with me). I could see them acting as a liaison between conflicting peoples or as a traveling adviser of sorts. The ideas worked, and they fit Cael's desire to interact with others, but there was something missing, a piece so cosmically large it hid right on front of my eyes.

This past week, that idea sparked as three motifs aligned for me: 1) a funeral in-game, 2) the general theme of "memory" that's been in the back of my mind for weeks, and 3) a simple scene from the penultimate episode of Dimension 20's "A Crown of Candy" D&D 5e campaign.

The Domino Setup

When I created Cael, memory as a central character theme wasn't even a blip on my radar. Cael was just a sorcerer whose shadow was sentient and whose best friend, Valen, saved them from a life of drugged numbness.

But since we were playing Pathfinder 2e and I needed a reason that made sense as to why Valen helped them, I chose the "Shrouded Magic" Kayal Ancestry Feat for Cael. Shrouded Magic allows the player to choose a cantrip to cast innately, and I chose the cantrip "Join Pasts":

"With touches to the targets’ foreheads, you bring them into mental communion. The targets can share thoughts and experiences, but not words."

My partner and I tweaked the cantrip to serve as Cael's memory sharing ability, but because it had been a defense mechanism for them and triggered off of nightmares primarily, neither of us really considered its potential with volunteered casting until several sessions into the main campaign itself.

From there, its importance and the importance of memory grew, partly as a convenient way of relaying events to fellow PCs but also to trusting NPCs, since the target of the spell has to be willing. They developed a spell that allowed them to view the memories of people collected by objects. Memory evolved organically as a storytelling device during the performances Cael started organizing until one day it became such a core value, they wrote in the journal entry following Teyr'loch Delter Pach: "Valen, I believe memories may be more precious than life."

Because Valen was the one who ingrained, "Life is a precious thing," in Cael, this line marked their true independence of him as a person and to define for themselves what matters instead of embodying someone else's values.

Since performing Teyr'loch Delter Pach, I've kept the theme and motif of memory close to the forefront of my mind. There's a multitude of ways you can manipulate memory in Pathfinder 2e, many of which we've turned into Rituals for Daggerheart, which makes the theme ripe for exploring and further developing, which leads us to the funeral.

The Start of Epiphany

Last week, in preparation for Monday's (8.31) "Skies Over Aefala" session, I wrote a short funeral speech and performance for Cael to give following the events of a raid on the city of Zhilta's docks and a subsequent mission to a bandit stronghold north of the city. Both clashes led to the deaths of a small handful of NPCs.

Cael is the type of person who does not discriminate between the "right" and "wrong" sides of a conflict. They are the type of person who helps ease the suffering of enemy and ally alike, and as such, they advocated for the funeral to include not just the fallen dock worker but the fallen bandits as well.

While some were not happy with the idea initially, Cael has earned enough respect and pull within the city over the course of the campaign, the powers that be granted them permission. It helped that they had performed a funeral ceremony for the dock workers a few months past as well.

Since I wrote it in a very similar style to previous performances, such as Teyr'loch Delter Pach, I found and timed the speech as well as the performance segment to music. I didn't pick apart timing cues as strictly as I normally would, relying more on my intuition, since my deadline was session day, and once I wrote enough to start practicing, I brought the speech/performance with me on my morning walks.

The piece I chose, "Sacrifice" by Steve Jablonsky, shares some motifs with "Sir Edmund Burton," and "Seglass Ni Tonday," two pieces I used for Teyr'loch Delter Pach. One part happy accident, one part intentional.

---

Cael's Speech

"'Life is a precious thing. And yours is no different, especially to me.'"

"My partner said those words to me many years ago."

"I was deathly ill. He used his knowledge of medicine and alchemy to nurse me back from the brink, hardly sleeping, hardly even leaving my bedside."

"My response when I came to was not one of gratitude but of fear and anger and revulsion, because I had a deeply ingrained trauma response to anything medicinal."

"I yelled at him. I threw our lifespan differences in his face, saying I would have rather died. My words sucked the air out of the room like a punch to the gut."

"Quietly, calmly, he said, 'Life is a precious thing. And yours is no different, especially to me,' then left me alone to reflect on those words."

"Today, I sat in prison with these men and women (gesturing to the prisoners) reflecting on those words once more, because the only quality separating me from them — and I truly do mean the only quality, since I could have easily wound up as one of them in another life — is that the individual I killed did not hold a drop of compassion or empathy or regret in his heart. None. He lived to kill just as readily as we breathe to live."

"Yet his was still a life, and life is a precious thing, and death, someday, comes for us all."

"Outlaw, guard, student, civilian...human, elf, halfling, akryna... Regardless of status or ancestry, belief in the gods or no, we inevitably pass beyond the veil of this life into the next."

"For those we cherish, death arrives too soon. For those we despise, death cannot seem claim them fast enough."

"Yet death is not a topic we like to ponder for ourselves. Our mortality makes us uncomfortable. Some might brush it off and say, "death is part of the job," when it comes to protecting civilians or living as a bandit, but probe enough, and they'll start to squirm with discomfort."

"Because death means, 'severance.'"

"It means no more experiencing that person's hugs or scratchy cheek kisses. No more late night discussions of hopes and dreams. No more drinking watery ale together in a rundown tavern or singing bawdy working songs played by small town minstrels. Playing cards, cheating each other out of your earnings, getting ribbed for flirting terribly with the barkeep or servers... severed."

"You lose all possibility of telling the deceased what they meant to you, what they mean to you, and they have already lost all there is to lose. Only memories remain, which makes them perhaps the most precious thing of all."

"So, let us remember. Let us reflect. For as long as the fires burn, share with each other stories of the deceased, and if you have none, then share stories from your own memories. I will share what few memories I have collected of the deceased intermittently as well. Because memories are as precious to life as living is to creating memories."

---

Cael didn't know any of these people personally, so they couldn't speak as though they did, but they could draw parallels to other relatable experiences.

In preparation for the ceremonial portion of the funeral, Cael read the memories of the deceaseds' personal effects and then shared these memories with the attendees while the funeral pyres burned.

The session was on Monday, and I transcribed a majority of it yesterday (9.1), the same day we started the penultimate episode of, "A Crown of Candy."

Where Ideas Collide

"You look...and see that the ice crystals in here are flickering, and that as they flicker...with stories and memories you see that they're flickering because they're disappearing." Brennan Lee Mulligan

I paused the video there, much to my partner's bemusement, because Brennan's statement had snagged on an important hook, and I needed a moment to reel it in. Ice crystals. Stories. Memories. Memories disappearing. These crystals were storing memories, and now they're disappearing.

Cumulous, one of the characters in "A Crown of Candy," is a monk who loves magic and magical items and whose order is trying to preserve what magic remains in Candia. Beauregard in Critical Role's "Mighty Nein" campaign is a monk of the Cobalt Soul, an order that collects and stores dangerous magical objects. Cael is trying to create their own organization in our "Skies Over Aefala" campaign, which they've deemed "The Sky Watch," to record and report on growing Rift activity. Once our own campaign has finished, the group would become obsolete...or would it?

Depending on how events unfold, Cael could lean even more heavily into the belief that memories are precious. What if, instead of collecting magical objects, they repurpose "The Sky Watch" and collect memories instead? What if, instead of an impressive wizard's tower, they build an entire repository for the preservation of memories, not just of the living but those long deceased as well? They have enough contacts and resources. They could teach other talented or hardworking spellcasters such as they how to read an object's memories. This would be their life's work, and it may very well be the most fulfilling mission they've undertaken.

I've been wondering for a long time how exactly to go about sharing this story.

I may have just found my answer.

Summary of Notable Accomplishments (8.26 - 9.1):

• Built with Science workouts:

  • Back

  • Shoulders

  • Arms

  • Chest

  • Legs

  • Because I didn't do my Shoulders workout on Friday (I was trying to finish last week's blog post), I did Shoulders and Arms on Saturday instead, which impacted my Chest workout on Sunday. My muscles were noticeably fatigued, so I had to back off on weight/reps

  • On Tuesday, I had the idea to duplicate isolation exercises within the app to denote one series as for my left side and the other for my right side, just in the event I could push harder on one side than the other, which will tell me where imbalances lie. I'm not sure how well the app will handle it, but I was pretty proud of myself for the idea

• Cael's speech/performance

• Walk, walk, walk, walk — oh god it's over 35°C/95°F and 100% humidity

• I'm on page 157 of Shogun

  • It's an easy book to read quickly

  • I'm still not sure how I feel about it

• Transcribed Session 143 Parts 1-4

• I drove places!

  • Okay, so I always feel anxious while driving.

  • Once I'm behind the wheel and on the road, I'm pretty much fine. It's 1) navigating towns/cities I don't know, 2) trying to park, 3) merging onto busy interstates, and 4) unexpected detours/construction/etc. that make me nervous. If I know where I'm going and have no issues along the way? Peachy. No problem at all. I can even navigate inclement weather without too much worry.

  • I've never gotten into a wreck; I've never gotten pulled over

  • It's one of those instances where, because I feel like I should be far more competent at it than I feel I am, and it feels like such an obvious skill to just "have", my lack of experience exacerbates the anxiety. I could go more in-depth on this topic, because there's a variety of factors that tie into this, but that's maybe a post for another day.

Real Talk:

• One of the main reason I love TTRPGs is the vast array of skills I get to practice at any given time:

  • Writing speeches

  • Thinking on my feet

  • Practicing communication skills

  • Finding or creating inventive solutions to problems

  • Acting/Character studies

  • Writing performances in my favored style

  • Drawing

  • Composing

  • Etc.

• For those of you who play/GM TTRPGs regularly, what invaluable skills have you learned/practiced for your games?

• Tell me about a recent epiphany you've had! Can you retrace what stars just so happened to align for it to burst like fireworks in your brain?

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Salad

"Oh bother."