Read chapter 13 (“Siltrin”) here.
Chapter Summary
“You are touch-starved, I think,” she concluded, tapping her lips.
He didn’t know what that meant, but it felt like a rope thrown down to a prisoner in an oubliette. He grabbed onto it more eagerly than he cared admit.
In the aftermath of a fight with a fomorian and some purple worms, Mavash seeks to ease some of Jorlan’s physical pain. But his wounds are more than surface deep, and Jorlan finds the cure is worse than the sickness.
Content warnings
Implied/referenced sexual assault, as we talk more about Jorlan’s terrible history.
Incidentally, this chapter is a bit spicier than the others, but this is as spicy as it gets. I am admitting my characters want to bang, but there are never gonna be details. I like the sexual tension more than the physics.
Chapter End Notes
- As written, Oloth tlu malla is only a +2 longsword. Not actually a vorpal scimitar. Come on, Chris Perkins. You say right in the introduction to OotA there’s a lot of Alice in Wonderland inspiration in this adventure, and you pass up the opportunity to put in a vorpal sword?
- I left out the part where Mavash tried to make Jorlan think it was an intelligent weapon by talking to him telepathically with a bad drow accent.
- Yes, an owlbear is a monstrosity, not a beast, and a druid shouldn’t be able to turn into one. But listen, if WoW taught me anything, it’s that druids and owlbears are inextricably linked. Also it’s basically a CR3 cave bear, and DM Nixon suggested it.
- The drow poetry book that the fomorian has is, strangely enough, part of the actual treasure in RAW. I have no idea what Jorlan intended with it. I suspect DM Nixon just had him take it to create interesting fanfic hooks. Operation: successful.
- Grinna, who is briefly mentioned, is a gender-swapped version of Grin Ousstyl, Vizeran’s apprentice in RAW. I don’t think there’s anything that prevents drow women from being wizards, although I imagine it’s frowned upon.
- Jorlan’s rant about “stories surfacers tell about the drow” is a modified version of my rant about the ridiculous, over-the-top evil of the drow matriarchy as seen in the books and in (a lot of) fanfic. So much of the drow matriarchy reads like some guy’s BDSM fantasy or a “bitches be crazy” joke. That’s one of the things that makes the drow so problematic; it turns female characters into caricatures without inner life other than I WILL BE TERRIBLE TO MEN AND PLEASE LOLTH.
(That said, I mean… all of the things he mentions ARE things that happen in drow society that he’s trying to gloss over. He graduated from Melee-Magthere; he should know from demonic orgies).
- I jokingly call this “the chapter where Jorlan learns that a boner is not consent.” It’s basically impossible for him to have been in a consensual relationship within the drow matriarchy, because of the lack of freedom to say “no.” But of course he doesn’t realize that. And since I have painted him as a survivor of sexual assault, I think that the ethical thing for Mavash to do (and she would do the ethical thing; she’s chaotic good) would be to let any sexual aspect of their relationship develop entirely on his terms.
Which is also incredibly difficult for him, for much the reason Mavash named. And of course he’s going to read it as a rejection of him at first, which leads to sadness. But I hope I ended it with a bit of hope for these two lovebirds.
- The chapter title, “siltrin,” means “flesh” in the fan dictionary. “Touch,” alas, is not defined, or I would have used that as the chapter title.
- Finally, this chapter is still a little displaced in time. I wrote it before the previous two chapters, and there is still at least one more chapter to be placed between “El’lar” and this one. But hey, you just got two chapters back to back of plot-less Mavash/Jorlan schmaltz, so… you’re welcome?
