I DM for my partner and my kids, ages ranging from 8 to 20. With such varying ages and interests, sometimes writing our sessions for D&D can get daunting. We have my partner as an Aasimar fighter polearm master called Glaive. Our youngest is a human child barbarian with a buster sword named Tyfon. The two older kids are a Star Elf trickster cleric called Sparrow and a tabaxi Circle of Spores druid with some levels of necromancer called Thorn. In trying to figure out how to get this ragtag group to their next destination, I reskinned the Sunless Citadel module in the Tales from the Yawning Portal book for 5th edition.
The party had heard rumors of travelers going missing on the trade routes and suspected that it was a band of goblins as the rumors in the module suggested. But I had something else in mind. I reskinned creatures from Pathfinder called Kurobozu – cursed undead monks filled with nothing but hate and jealousy for the living and suck breathe and life out of their victim’s mouths, keeping out of reach by skittering along the floor, walls, and ceiling on all fours like arachnids.
When they first got into the citadel from the collapsed main courtyard, both Thorn and Glaive had Kurobozu drop down on them from the ceiling, successful rolls for surprise attacks. Glaive didn’t do so well on his CON rolls and began to get diseased by the undead creature sucking the life out of him. Finally destroying the first two of these creatures, the group was visibly shaken that they had gotten the drop on the strongest and fastest characters in the party.
They found themselves in a room full of dust and six alcoves with marble figures of plate-mailed elves standing in them, weapons ready. At the end of the room is a stone arch with a pit right after it. It’s very dark except for a greenish light glowing from the room on the other side of the arch, making the pit hard to see.
Sparrow rolled the lowest when I asked them all to roll a perception check. Our intrepid singing trickster cleric screamed when a large centipede dropped from the ceiling and tried to get down into her leather armor. Thorn was fast enough to pull it out, throwing it against the wall so hard that it knocked the quasit back into its own form. “I’m free to leave now!” it squeaked, jumping up from where it had slumped to the floor. Before it could turn into a bat and fly away as the module suggests, Tyfon picked up the little infernal and hugged it so tight its eyes nearly popped out of its sockets. Thus restrained, Glaive began to question the quasit, who called itself Jot. Now if you’ve read or played the module, you know that Jot is supposed to run or fly away so that it can annoy the party as they traverse the Citadel. But while being questioned, the only voice I could come up with for the critter was a cross between Stitch from the Disney movie and Macaroni Sampsonite (a Travis Willingham character). The voice stuck and apparently so did Jot. The kids and their characters loved Jot so much that they convinced Glaive to keep him.
As demons and starspawn have been a continuing theme and occurrence in our campaign, Jot can sometimes be very helpful with information on different hellish creatures. He was used to invisibly spy outside a window and was able to give information to Glaive once they made a deal. Oh, not for a soul, but for a constant supply of flapjacks. Jot is good at stealing keys and items and is usually invisibly on Glaive’s shoulder or hiding in his coin pouch. Jot even causes mischief and mayhem when needed, and terrorizes Glaive’s NPC sisters whenever possible. Glaive even bribed Jot with double the usual flapjacks if he would turn into a bat and fly over Glaive’s sister Gwen, then drop into her bodice as a centipede. Mind you this was after they had gone home for some downtime and several mugs of ale had been passed around. We um, ahem, discovered Jot is fond of redheads >.>
Jot has been a companion to the party for about a year now. Glaive keeps grumbling that soon he’ll be obligated to kill the little creature to send him back where he belongs. But the kids and their characters always “convince” him of the many uses Jot has. Tyfon wants to collect more pets. She’s imprinted on a juvenile gray render and had a saddle made specifically for her to use as a mount since she’s taken a few levels in Cavalier. I love seeing what crazy ideas my family comes up with when we play. It’s never ever what I expect. Especially not when my partner still uses Jot’s voice whenever we go to the grocery store as he rides on the shopping cart. My real-life quasit.
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