Press-Ganged
The people have spoken, and our latest Patreon Poll has come to a close. With Aristocrat now taking care of affairs of state, the Heroes have gone through a rigorous hiring process to find a replacement NPC. I hope you will all join me in welcoming Drow Priestess to the team! She certainly looks happy to have landed the job. (Better luck next time, Cultist and Vampire Spawn!)
As you might have guessed from our short-list of candidates, today’s comic is all about untrustworthy allies and backstabbing henchmen. If there are any Critical Role fans out there, a certain squid is the archetypal example. This mess generally follows the pattern of 1) party meets creepy critter; 2) party falls for creepy critter’s sob story; 3) party decides to invite said monstrosity to tag along.
“Oh don’t worry,” they’ll say. “We’ll keep a close eye on them.”
But then the inevitable happens. The second that the illithid / adorable goblin / succubus-with-a-heart-of-gold gets half a chance, it’s all maniacal cackling and long live the king.
Now I’ll be honest here: I’m of two minds on this one. Even though she might err on the side of drama, Wizard has a solid point. Redemption arcs can be a lot of fun. If you put in the work and appeal to your press-ganged ally’s self-interest, you might just turn them to your cause. And watching a bloodthirsty little monster charge your enemies is a hoot and a half. On the other hand, it begins to strain credulity when the black-hearted servants of evil start integrating into society like it ain’t no thing. Especially if you’re in a setting that handles anti-monster prejudice, asking a “tame” hill giant to play nice back in town probably isn’t ending well.
Where do you guys come down on this one? Are evil monsters generally irredeemable, or are they just a pat on the head and a job offer away from fighting for the good guys? Sound off with tales of your own “unconventional allies” and sudden but inevitable etc. down in the comments!
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To answer your question I give you the same answer a inquisitor would to a heretic.
“Kill the heretic , abhor the heretic, purge them!!!!”
Aka they are irredeemable >:V
I gather you’re into the Warhammer Fantasy RPG.
Wait a moment, how did Wizard even manage to trap the Drow Priestess like that? Between poor BAB progression and playing a class that traditionally dumps strength, her CMB must be laughably low. I see only one explanation: she didn’t tie her up. Drow Priestess was just enjoying some of what her culture would consider “me-time” while Wizard stumbled upon her and decided to take advantage of the opportunity.
Non evil characters belonging to traditionally evil races are basically my favorite thing ever, and redemption arcs are right up that alley. Unfortunately I don’t get to play those much: they are far too easy to get rejected because everyone assumes you want to be either a special snowflake Mary Sue or an Edgy McEdgeperson. Cue the inevitable Drizzt comparison, even if literally the only similarity your PC has to that character is that they both look like assholes without actually being one.
Tying someone up is an unusual – but effective – use of Tenser’s Transformation 😛
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/animate-rope
Well, in my first game one of the other players had a Hobgoblin Paladin. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that hobgoblins were an always evil race so it didn’t make much difference to me. And of course, in the campaign that just ended we had a couple of goblins. They weren’t evil but they were definitely chaotic.
Also, why is my name now a hyperlink to my gmail?
No idea.
Hobgoblins aren’t an always evil race, though.
I think generally when someone speaks of the “evil races” they mean races that are traditionally evil or where majority of “specimens” are evil, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Drow, possibly Tieflings (all setting dependant, obviously) all qualify under that definition. If you reserved it only for races that are literally intrinsically connected to the concept of evil by their very nature, you’d only be left with Fiends and the Undead (and even that is setting dependant – for instance in Pathfinder Rakshasas are considered fiends and can even spawn Tieflings, but they lack the evil subtype. Their caste system even has a category for Rakshasas who strayed to far from LE, becoming chaotic or good – Pagala, the Traitors. Notably LN, TN and NE are perfectly acceptable under that system).
Actually have sort of the reverse of this playing through the Way of the Wicked module. Currently we’re at the portion where you control a dungeon and defend it from invading adventurers.
We set up non-lethal traps and attack methods to capture invaders. After questioning we would tempt some to the dark side. All throughout the party realizes we’re trying to build a house of cards that will come tumbling down at some point, just not quite yet.
Yeah, but it’ll be fun when it finally happens.
“How could you? I trusted you!”
“You killed my old party and slapped me about the face and head with their entrails.”
“See? We’ve shared so much together!”
There’s monsters and there’s monsters. Things like demons can’t stop being evil in the same way that humans can’t stop being made of flesh. There’s no redemption to be had there.
Then there’s things like orcs and drow. And, the thing is… maybe I’m using the wrong kind of real-world morality approach on this, but I don’t feel that redemption is a prerequisite for mercy. If you’ve captured a bad guy and can safely contain them, then you should let them live, not because they “might turn good”, but because that’s what good people do.
Is there a rule I missed somewhere? Certain Hellboys want to know!
See, I wanted to do a “I already had my redemption arc – with your mom!” joke, but on second thought, I highly suspect ‘your mom’ jokes are one of the worst insults possible in a society under Lolth….
Not that Drow Priestess seems the type to let that stop her.
I think that among drow, mama is generally so fat because of sexual cannibalism. They do love being spidery.
My absolute favorite time that happened was in my Kingmaker game
The party is travelling the lands, searching for a band of rampaging Trolls, and meets and incredibly drunk Hill Giant.
Instead of killing him, they started a conversation with him. Some incredibly good diplomacy checks later, they had a new friend and invited him to their kingdom.
For reasons I don’t understand to this day, they sobered him up, bought him some magic gear to improve his mental ability and made them their personal lawyer, because every respectable kingdom needs a legal team.
Now he’s Munguk, Hill Giant lawyer extraordinaire and ambassador to the Kingdom of Lashante
Well then. When you own the kingdom, I guess you get to call the shots.
For my own homebrewed setting, I have severely cut down the number of “sentient” races there are on the planet. Mostly everything else that is “sentient” reside on a different plane, and cannot survive more than 72 hours on the material plane.
Combine this with the fact that in my setting, the focus has shifted from alignment to loyalties, motivations, and vices, and you are no longer really dealing with an “evil” or “good’ race, but rather simply groups and individuals with different cultural beliefs.
Can you still attempt to redeem these more “monstrous” races? Sure, but it won’t be easy, and are best suited to spending your time adventuring than trying to redeem someone.
Forget “evil” then. I’m not really talking about alignment in today’s comic. Think instead in terms of “questionably treacherous.” This business is all about allowing antagonists to tag along and join the party. It doesn’t have to be monsters. It could just as easily be a mercenary hired to kill you or a pickpocket you caught red-handed.
I mean, the first order of business is to find out their motivations, and their story behind those motivations. For example, if the mercenary was hired to kill you, was “money” the only motivation behind the assault?
If so, would the mercenary be willing to be paid even more to not kill us, but instead tell us who hired him, why the employer wanted the player/party dead, and possibly even be hired to instead kill the employer (possibly offering double, triple, or quadruple the hired price)?
If not, why did they really accept the job. Is it something that the party can help out with?
I am not saying that the party would expect a 180 change in behavior, but knowing WHY someone is doing something ultimately helps when deciding what to do about person X or Y comes along.
I’m a sucker for a good redemption arc. Unfortunately, my players are not, which means they tend towards the “no witnesses” school of thought on enemy interaction. They did however have a wonderful dynamic with one particular drow wizard. He was fully in the society of the drow that the party had been fighting, but politically he stood to lose if the faction driving the conflict won. So every now and again, he would show up out of the blue, help the party in some way, and then bug out. I don’t think they ever really trusted him, but they did like it when he showed up because it always meant things would get really interesting, and he was basically honest with them.
This wasn’t Out of the Abyss, was it? ‘Cause I might know that guy.
Nah, this is all homebrew stuff. I actually made the setting with a friend as my Senior Project in high school. We made the world map, set out faction lines, made a history, and prepped a few sessions as part of a Sci-fi/Fantasy class. We were going to do it anyway, of course, because we are huge nerds, but this way we didn’t have to come up with some other project.
Nice. Wish I had a sci-fi / fantasy class back in high school. I’ve only ever seen straight-up sci-fi offered, and that was in college.
In my experience, players are quick to adopt monsters, less quick to trust sapients.
One time, the players found a slime, and they poured magical horse liquid on it, turning the formerly mindless being into an extremely confused tiefling that the party wanted to keep around. Unfortunately, they were standing right next to a deadly trap and the tiefling walked into it when they tried to lead it along. That boy did not last long.
Neither did the party, since they set off a faulty magical nuke, but such is things
Horse liquid! We meet again.
When we last left off, I was a medium-sized gender swapped kobold sorcerer with pink hair and an orcish bloodline. Darkness and light were inverted for me, and I had a +2 Str, -2 Con, -4 Cha stat array. Tough to get much worse than that.
I drink the horse liquid! What happens?
Well, rolling some dice and checking the table I’ve remade for the 5th time… you grow one size category and gain 2 strength.
Alright! Sitting at size large and a +4 Str mod! Excuse me while I prestige into dragon disciple.
Not with an Orc Bloodline you don’t.
This character sucks. 🙁
I am happy to say that the official 5th edition version of the horse liquid references a total of 9 possible tables when drunk
Where can I get a copy of these tables?
My main character died so I played a Bugbear that been deposed by his goblin slaves and driven into the underdark. I went with the motivation that the whole maintaining goblin slaves not only wasn’t very effective at getting what he really wanted, nice things and good food and it failed spectacularly. so he decided he was going to try a different approach help these adventurers save some people and then mooch off the good will from the village they came from for as long as he could. He was still a bastard at heart but it was in line with the group’s objective. Retired him after that adventure so he got a job as a tavern bouncer so he could beat up people and get paid to do it, Win Win.
So like… Was anyone in the tavern like, “Eek! A bugbear!”?
In a couple campaigns I’ve had evil characters in the party, generally when the end of the world is brought up, alignment and morality doesn’t really matter when we’re all gonna become slaves to an artificial god or the world’s end is rapidly accelerated with an entropy machine. If a minor villain is explained the gravity of the situation, they may want to help instead.
Seems to come down to motivation. If you’re sure you know where the baddie is coming from, you can be sure of their actions.
We had a goblin ally with us temporarily the other day… it was curtesy of the Mind Sphere, but that still counts right?
There was some bargaining gong on and my Empathic Deulist Eliciter with Subtlety and the Conceal Spell feat was promptly stabbed.
So he began speaking with greater flourish of hand and word about how their leader had just signed their death warant, but any who sided with us would live and be the new leader. 2 points for powerful charm well spent and a failed save later, their chief was furious as the shamanic goblin and his big cat turned on him.
It was a good alliance… until he was killed by the chief.
We avenged him though… so all was well.
Was there perchance a riding gecko involved in this fight? I may know where you were at.
Hush, you!
I may or may not have been recycling some NPC’s from an adventure path while not actually using the adventure path. To answer your question though- Yes, the chief was riding a gecko, but everyone was using Spheres of Power/Spheres of Might, so there was bleeding damage and destructive blasts galore! Even got to ranged impale the party’s symbiat with a javelin!
That well placed charm definitely won them the fight, though. The party is level 2, and I was merciless on the optimization of the chief and the druid. I fully expected at least one of the party to be dragged out of there.
That same set of encounters also taught them a very hard lesson about:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/unholy-heals
Nobody in the party has healing magic, and nary a one of them have a rank in heal. Oh, and they had no equipment at the start of the game, and had to outfit the entire party with stolen weapons and about 70g.
It’s been good times.
You may know where, but not when.
This is a Open-ended campaign that takes place years later, and we are just passing through…
He was imitating the original though so yes he did. 🙂
You can determine a Drow’s alignment by how they dress. Drow are made out of the sexual-hangups of baby-boomer fantasy writers/artists. As such the most evil Drow all wear spider-themed S&M gear. (“If we’re a matriarchy, why do we dress this way?”) Less evil Drow dress in more practical clothing. The one presented in the comic is therefore evil as heck.
That said, ironically Drow would probably be pretty easy to turn. Their entire society is built around betraying each other to your own benefit. (How this hasn’t caused mass-societal collapse is beyond me) This means the initial defection is pretty simple. “Would Lolth want you risking your life for your allies?” The other thing aboot the Drow social system is that it’s really shitty for everyone except those at or near the top. Any sociologist, archaeologist, historian, or anthropologist would tell you that’s a formula for mass rebellion. This isn’t even a case of “But they have the military on their side”. The military is all male, and males are second-class citizens.
“The males are revolting!”
“Ugh. Tell me about it.”
“The males are revolting!”
“Shut up and eat what is put in front of you.”
…Phrasing…
I’m generally of the opinion that traditionally evil races are that way because of their society, not because of any inherent racial trait that drives them towards evil (most of the time, anyway — apparently 5e gnoll lore states that they’re sorta ravaging manifestations of Yeenoghu’s will or some such and are therefore Always Chaotic Evil. Not sure how much of that I’ll apply to my campaign, since I don’t feel “these things are evil because they’re evil” is particularly interesting when applied to creatures that aren’t literally made out of evil like demons.)
Take orcs, for example. They’re brutal marauders, yes, but that’s mostly because their society says that’s the best way for them to survive — by taking everybody else’s stuff for the glory of their gods (who, by the way, seem to mostly be angry at the other gods for not inviting them to their parties). Without that background growing up, I figure an orc would merely be a particularly hulking person with a slightly shorter lifespan than a human and maybe a tendency for a quick temper.
Our group’s warforged barbarian took this line of reasoning to its logical extreme; after finding out in a vision quest that it was Gruumsh’s commands making orcs be evil, he decided that the best way to fix the problem was to go fight Gruumsh and get him to stop. Unfortunately, that particular plotline is going on the back burner since that player had to move to Virginia.
Our group has made friends with a couple of “monsters”, which I’m generally inclined to let them do if it makes sense. They let a goblin live in their village so long as he doesn’t cause trouble, which he’s fine with because they’re scary people who he very much does not want to fight. They’re letting a nothic keep living in their basement because it doesn’t seem to do much more than be creepy and demand raw meat (a job they gave to aforementioned goblin), which it’s fine with because it gets fed regularly and gets to keep being creepy. And there’s the doppelganger I’ve mentioned several times now that they’ve let tag along with them several times, which she’s fine with because it’s new and interesting and being a “good guy” might come with perks.
In general, in my games goblins and kobolds are quite redeemable (due in part to society but also in part because they’re kind of cute), and many of the less-intelligent monsters are also redeemable because they mostly accept what they’re told. (Though orcs are very difficult, due to how much evilness is driven into their brains from a young age. The drow are also redeemable; from reading the Salvatore novels I’ve noticed that drow are not inherently evil (other races, such as orcs, have evil urges implanted by their deities) but evil as a result of society, meaning that while difficult redemption is possible.
The players are very good with finding allies in monsters. If they come upon a redeemable monster, then they’ll let it tag along. If they come across a tribe of kobolds, they’ll redeem the entire tribe, let them tag along but quickly find an excuse to dump them before the entire tribe is slaughtered. If they find a villain who shares a common goal with the party but seems irredeemable, then they’ll work together for a while but break off before the villain gets around to betraying them.
Meanwhile, off in the distance, a single tear rolls down Gunslinger’s cheek. He had his chance, but he wasn’t quick enough. Once more, he is left with naught but lead and sorrows for company.
In The Witcher Geralt, the titular witcher and monster hunter, says many times that not all monsters are evil. So he is friend of some trolls, a higher vampire and a gold dragon. Now, on our table that can be quite truth too, but we will not play an redemption arc, we respect the culture and ethical alignment of the various races and species in our games, without trying to corrupt them according to a suppose enlightenment good intention. Or in other words, we don’t care about alignment but the monsters will work for us or become steak. Illithid steak with onion and butter is a delicatessen of rangers 🙂
Also redemption arc, they are boring and idealistic, we are more inclined to cynicism in the cynical vs. idealistic alignment. To think that you can change the essence of a person to match your own view is quite narcissistic and a very dogmatic form of thinking. Whatever it’s corruption or redemption, it’s not different of assimilating other to your own alignment. Which by the way can be a good idea for a campaign on a setting of mine. Thanks for the idea 🙂
This harkens back to stuff like Super Mario RPG where known antagonists unite with the party and I kove it. My dream character for an adventure path is to join the party playing as a previously defeated enemy who becomes a fun foil to the party.
The real trick is the setup and the planning with the GM. You have to either have advanced knowledge of an early boss or work with them to rewrite a major early story thread.
Hush, you!
I may or may not have been recycling some NPC’s from an adventure path while not actually using the adventure path. To answer your question though- Yes, the chief was riding a gecko, but everyone was using Spheres of Power/Spheres of Might, so there was bleeding damage and destructive blasts galore! Even got to ranged impale the party’s symbiat with a javelin!
That well placed charm definitely won them the fight, though. The party is level 2, and I was merciless on the optimization of the chief and the druid. I fully expected at least one of the party to be dragged out of there.
That same set of encounters also taught them a very hard lesson about:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/unholy-heals
Nobody in the party has healing magic, and nary a one of them have a rank in heal. Oh, and they had no equipment at the start of the game, and had to outfit the entire party with stolen weapons and about 70g.
It’s been good times.
I have a friend fond of saying “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” any time that circumstances warrant it, and many times when they do not. I have a somewhat different point of view.
See, you can only be betrayed if you provide an opportunity to BE betrayed. But you have to accept that it is impossible to police the actions of your freshly recruited frenemy 100% of the time-therefore, the opportunity for betrayel exists = yes.
Rather than worry about potential problems like that, I simply ask how, as an outsider, I’d choose to NOT stab my new friends in their eyes while they sleep to gain brownie points with my old Big Bad Boss. And the answers are usually straight forward:
Pay better.
Offer better treatment.
Become actual friends.
Give heals.
Go off and do non-adventurer things during RP time to strengthen your bond.
I mean, that’s how I handle it, and my characters have never been backstabbed by friends that I made out of antagonistic NPC’s.
Then again, my characters are kind of my characters, and I don’t know that I’d betray any of those misfits because they have a really bad habit of surviving anything and getting revenge.
Let’s see, what do I have for this:
1) In LMOP, our lizard wizard insisted on taking Droop the Goblin as an apprentice. It’s actually worked out surprisingly well.
2) In the same group, our Tortle Barbarian is trying to raise a baby water elemental that we accidentally created by blowing up teleportation orbs that were being used to send the spellforge to the plane of water (we think, we may have killed most of the cultists without ever getting a clear idea of what they were doing).
3) In a different group, we teamed up with the revenant created by the murder of a priest of Lathandar by his teammates. The entire time he was pretty weak, because he didn’t want to take off his symbol of Lathandar and embrace the whole undead champion of vengeance thing. We helped him track them down, then damn near split the party when, faced with the last traitor, he rolled a natural 20 on his wisdom save and decided to take her back to town to face justice. Yes, the revenant was actually a ‘better’ person than the party (better is in quotes there because it was a very ambiguous situation as to whether it was better to just kill her, or go back and go the trial route).
4) On the more negative side, we accidentally freed multiple slimes from multiple magical imprisonments, and it has never gone well. My character led one bunch to a room of endless meat to keep it out of our way. Which worked. Until we had to go back to the area and found it waist deep in slimes…
Awful lot of Evil PC tales in these comments today… so here’s mine, it’s a Drow Tale…
Waaaaaay back in 2e the party (I’d yet to join) had foiled an Evil plot to pitch the world into eternal darkness by the Drow. The party had stolen the McGuffin and defeated the high priestesses. And then promptly lost the McGuffin to a pair of Illithid.
Anyway, between sessions I’d joined the group but hadn’t really gotten a character together, so the DM asked if I wanted to play an Adversary, basically an NPC, but I’d plot and scheme and run them so the DM didn’t have to try to outwit the Players on his own. I was like “Sure…” so he hands me a Drow Priestess/Necromancer. So, I know what has happened so far, I know vaguely where the PCs are headed, so I set up an ambush with a bunch of Zombies. Simple right? The DM figured I’d fight the PCs, then it’d be a race after the Illithid and the McGuffin… I didn’t tell him all my plans…
So the PCs get ambushed by the Zombies , and during it my NPC shows up and helps end the Zombies. She’s wounded, and claims that the Zombies were set against her a pair of Illithid she’s hunting, “They stole a McGuffin and are going to end the world! And like that’s bad because that’s where I keep all my stuff!” The PCs believe her, and we joined forces to hunt the Illithid…
Cue several adventures where /every/ /single/ /time/ we stop to rest we get jumped by Undead! And they constantly go right for the party Cleric… now, the party knew I’m a Necromancer/Cleric. Was upfront about it (very up front about how my character was the granddaughter of the High Priestess they slew when they stole the McGuffin, that it was a high holy relic prophesied to bring about the Ever Night, that I was tasked to retrieve it, etc). And somehow these wights and ghouls and etc always managed to get at least one or two licks in on that pesky Cleric before being driven off or defeated. 😉 (enough to cost a few levels)
So, finally we caught the Illithid and defeated them in a long drawn out battle that left the Cleric out of spells, the Cavalier near dead, the Thief actually dead, and the Wizard and I standing over the fallen Mindflayer that was carrying the McGuffin (and I was miraculously uninjured, those pesky undead that showed up always managed to have someone else to fight…). As the Wizard reached for the McGuffin, I stabbed him. And killed him (poison, no save, instagibbins!). And then my undead came out of the shadows and took on the party as I fled with the McGuffin.
The best part? When I said “I stab him”, the Wizard jumped up shouting “I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! DAMN IT! I KNEW IT!” heh. Inevitable and obvious betrayal never felt so good.
Granted, I described my character as “fully clothed in sensible adventurer wear”, so that may have thrown off their “Evil Drow Radar”.
My group likes evil. They tend to play evil. They work very well together as evil people, and actually make a fair number of evil friends, allies, and lovers.
Redeemability isn’t typically a part of all that, but they work together with bad people pretty well. Whenever someone else who is evil shows up and isn’t actively in the way of their goals, they tend to find ways to make both sides benefit from teaming up instead of fighting.
Outside of being the party’s poison expert (whether they want her to be or not), just what kind of henchdrow role is Drow Priestess supposed to be? The party’s doc/healer? Their spiritual advisor on spider husbandry?
Actually, what was aristocrat’s expert skill to begin with? Intrigue? Drama? Poisoning?
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0507/11/licensed-firefly-jayne-public-relations-shirt-size_1_921646deefc3c4fd2f38ce389ca131ae.jpg
Link be dead!
More better link: https://media.giphy.com/media/vq1VjbBBxIMH6/giphy-facebook_s.jpg
Our resident bard was anti-establishment hippy type, and thus attempted to reform at least 1 goblin out of every encounter,(up to 4 while we were still at level 2) professing that these naturally evil creatures just needed to be given a chance. (he wanted to reform them all, but there was little interest as long as they outnumbered us)
My swashbuckler was a bit more realistic about the situation, but was willing to let them go with the basic point to consider; “your fellow goblins lived by stealing from others and not contributing anything, and they’re all dead. You might want to consider a new approach”
One of the goblins just ran and we never heard from again. 1 of them made an appearance in a oneshot that wound up with him joining the Zhentarim (shady mercenary guild) and 2 others got snagged by ogres, only for our Bard to convince those ogres to give us the goblins in return for some gold/misc items (there were several super high persuasion rolls and at least one nat20)
Thus the bard decided to take up the task of reforming these creatures. Unfortunately he was a bit… high concept in his teachings. I can’t remember the specifics, but it was something of the “good karma” and “health of your soul”
My swashbuckler decided to impress upon them the more practical points of turning away from evil; “you attack others, they want to attack you. More of them than you = you’ll die like what happened to the rest of your group”, “protect allies, back them up even if dangerous = they’ll still be alive and want to protect you in return = you stay alive longer”
One of them ended up getting swayed by a Paladin of Tiamat to consider following her, but ended up getting eaten by a Lizardfolk PC that joined the group later (belonging to the same player as the Tiamat paladin who was deemed to not be able to resolve the base personality conflicts)
But the last one was the one that really clicked. We had outfitted him with a simple shortbow to be able to contribute, but due to some amazing rolls, he ended up turning the tides several times, and we decided he deserved to gain some gloomstalker levels. In a twist of fate, he ended up saving a rather bigoted cleric from a shambling mound, sacrificing himself in the process, something not even my Swashbuckler had expected.
Or did he? The DM rolled a final d20 to see if he could make one last ditch move (he did technically still have HP at that point) and ended up critting. Apparently his noble act was so unexpected that he gained the favor of one of the forest gods who smote the Shambling mound and ferried him away to a place on the celestial plane.
The cleric managed to contact him through a sending spell, and we swore that we would find him and bring him back, but with teh dangers we were facing, we decided not to hurry too much. He had earned his comfortable vacation, and no one wanted to be the one to drag him back into our rather hectic and danger-fraught trials.