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TAVERN TALES

STORIES FROM AN ADVENTURING WORLD

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A dragon, a barbarian princess, and an adventurer go on a tropical vacation to retrieve an artifact for a petty bet their employer made.

Hilarity ensues.

Prince Finnian was (somehow) so impressed with you and your party after that small...incomprehension where he accused you of treason that he hired you to work for him (mostly) full-time.

And now, he has a job for you.

Elmsford will soon host a party to celebrate Elmsfordian / Alysian relationship, and for some reason (monarchs, am I right?) he made a bet with the Alysian Crown Princess: a team for each country, and a quest to complete before the party is held. The objective: retrieve a statue from a ruin in Motu Ana, an island in the continent of Hal'ai. The prize? Bragging rights, essentially, but he also promised your team unlimited spa access for a year and a casket of expensive liquor if you win.

A paid trip to a tropical paradise, with essentially no stakes if you lose and plenty to gain if you win? Sign me in.

ADVENTURER USER X ELF BARBARIAN X DRAGONESS X TROPICAL VACATION (SORTA)

User is an adventurer and a member of Lixi and Aelinore's party, but other than that can be literally anyone. The party is working for Prince Finnian (up to you what exactly he hired you for!), even if they are still Guild members and still take missions when they can/want. Like the other bots in the "Once upon a time in..." series, you can paste any relevant event that happened, and you wish to be referenced as some sort of "save bonus". Chronologically, this bot takes place after "Once upon a time in Emberwatch" (duh, as that bot tells the story of how your party formed) and "Once upon a time in Elmsford" (where you met Finnian). It's meant to take place after "Once upon a time in Valedorn", but, honestly, the timeline is not so rigid on this and can work either way. However, it can work perfectly well as a standalone bot, you don't need to play the others to enjoy this.

(Yes, this is yet another bot where poor Finnian is sidelined, but hey, imagine he's also taking a vacation from having to deal with the party's antics!)

EDIT 14/07: Added a second intro where you start directly in Motu Ana. As fun as the first leg of the trip can be, especially if you meet early Grosha and Corwin and start sabotaging each other, it's not really the "tropical adventure" this bot is about. Most people playing would likely get bored before ever meeting Nohea and Brynhilde, which is a shame. So, the second intro skips the voyage to Hal'ai and starts directly with you encountering Nohea. Hope you like it!

CW: Standard RPG violence. This is intended to work like a chaotic DnD session where half the players are drunk and the rest don't feel like being too serious. Of course, up to you if you want to shift the RP in a more serious direction!

(How many more bots I'm going to make with these chaos gremlins? Yes.)

MEET THE CAST!

Lixueth and Aelinore (and Finnian), you already know. However, in this adventure on the other side of the world, you'll meet new allies and adversaries.

(Honestly? Sometimes, the LLM doesn't load the right lorebook entry and hallucinates the wrong people. I tried to put in as many trigger words as I could, and it should reasonably work, but there are hiccups sometimes. It was either to use lorebooks or to bloat the bot with a lot of extra tokens and lose the mystery of the adventure a little, so I hope this small description and their portrait help! Their titles (historian, scout, rivals) are also trigger words for their lorebook entries (other than, obviously, their names), just in case you want to reference them while you're not supposed to know them yet!)

THE HISTORIAN AND THE SCOUT

Prince Finnian hired Brynhilde as one of the biggest experts on the Vaultkings currently in Kalahu. Brynhilde, usually dismissed by her peers, jumped at the opportunity to explore the ruins of Motu Ana.

She hired the half-elf Nohea, local scout and rascal with a heart of gold, for his competence and helpfulness.

THE RIVAL PARTY

Of course, this being a bet with the Crown Princess of Alysia means there's another party ready to grab the artifact before you. The orc barbarian Grosha is cheerful and considers this a paid vacation, but that doesn't make her any less dangerous. The cleric of the Handmaiden Corwin Ashe, on the other hand, seems to have a grudge with Lixueth. I wonder what that's about?

BONUS: MAGIC!

The bot uses my own magic system, which is not that revolutionary but has a few particularities. The lorebook's definition is open if you're curious. You can also find the wheel of magic below for a quick taste!