Terry Pynn

B-class article · First seen: s4 · Last seen: s19
Terry Pynn
Terry the Tortle · Bart (player slip s8) · Terry Bladesinger
Terry Pynn — portrait.
Character
StatusAlive
First seens4
Last seens19
PlayerChris
FactionSevryn's recruits

Terry Pynn (a play on terrapin, in keeping with the species joke) is a tortle wizard, currently a Fighter 1 / Bladesinger Wizard 3 at character level 4, played by Chris from session 4 to the present. He joined the party in Mirestrand (s4) as the replacement for the briefly-played Earthwing the Owlin, who in turn replaced the deceased Cholmondeley. Originally built as a College of Glamour bard with intent to multiclass into paladin, Terry was respec’d between sessions 5 and 6 into a Fighter / Wizard build aimed at the Bladesinger subclass, which he selected on hitting level 4 at the end of session 14 and first deployed in combat in session 15. He carries permanent in-fiction stat damage from a failed Performance check at Harvo’s funeral in session 9 (-1 Charisma), and his familiar — an owl named Earthwing, in homage to his abortive predecessor — is summoned via Find Familiar using a bagpipe-Macarena ritual.

Appearance and personality

Terry is a tortle, identified at his s4 introduction as having travelled forty-seven years for fresh water [27]. He carries a set of bagpipes as his enduring instrument — a holdover from his bard origins that survived the wizard respec — and uses them as the somatic prop for the Find Familiar ritual, which he refers to at the table as the “bagpipe-Macarena” [28]. His scimitar and short sword (the latter silvered) are his close-range armament; his spellbook is the Bladesinger’s tutelar focus.

Terry’s voice across the campaign tracks his class transitions in three discernible registers. As a bard (s4-s5) he speaks slowly and ramblesomely, drops Lord-of-the-Rings references — “I am no man. Sir. I am a woman. A woman.” [29] — and refers to his fellow adventurers as “lads”. The recurring jab “I’m a turtle. I always go last” [30] bridges the bard era into the wizard one. As a wizard (s6+) he is drier and pithier, given to lines like “I’m a smart wizard, I know not to touch things” [31] and the now-famous “I can’t help but notice that two of the people I’m traveling with are corrupted by demons. One’s corrupted by a dragon and one’s corrupted by the void.” [32]. As a Bladesinger (s14+) he is briskly confident, casting in motion: “I activate Bladesong” [8].

Terry is also the party’s licensed stalling-tactic deliverer, reciting Yakko’s chemistry song [33] and the Animaniacs countries song [34] in-character when the table’s momentum dips. He is religious-philosophical in flavour, with a “people” who maintain a Rite of Returning that he is not yet musically competent to perform [5].

Background

Tortle of unspecified geography. Forty-seven years of travel for fresh water predate his arrival at the Still Current Inn in Mirestrand. Like Earthwing the Owlin and Ruin after him, Terry was directed to the party by Sevryn — the party recognised the pattern by Terry’s third session at the latest. He observed in s4: “Sevryn seems to be pulling people from all around the world” [35].

A previous in-fiction sister figure looms over Terry’s character — referenced in Mharos’s succubus vision at the Black Vein Quarry (s9) and again by Terry’s failed Rite of Returning at Harvo’s funeral. The sister’s status (gone? unsung?) is unresolved.

Build history

Terry’s mechanical history is the messiest of any active PC. Chris has provided the canonical sequence:

  1. s4-s5: Bard 3. College of Glamour subclass intent (would have unlocked at level 4 with a 1-level paladin dip; the dip was never taken). Carries bagpipes for flavour. The “Bart” mishearing in later sessions stems from the player nickname for the bard build.
  2. Off-screen between s5 and s6: respec to Fighter 1 / Wizard 2. The bard 3 build was retired entirely; the planned paladin dip never happened. The same character narratively, with rebuilt mechanical scaffolding. The first in-session evidence is wizard-coded behaviour at [36] and L649. The first explicit table acknowledgement is another player asking, “Oh, no, wait, you changed from Bart to Wizard, did you?” [3].
  3. s11: build path declared. Terry tells the table: “One level of fighter, two levels of wizard. The fighter stuff’s irrelevant until I get Bladesinger” [6].
  4. s14: level 4 reached, Bladesinger subclass selected. The subclass features were locked behind a long rest at session’s end.
  5. s15: Bladesinger first deployed in combat. “I activate Bladesong” [8]. Dual-wielding short sword + scimitar; on his first turn under Bladesong he scored a natural-20 scimitar attack and beheaded an Aurelian recruit [9].

Current build at the end of session 16: Fighter 1 / Bladesinger Wizard 3 (level 4 total).

Equipment

  • Bagpipes — flavour instrument, somatic prop for Find Familiar and other rituals.
  • Short sword (silvered) — primary off-hand.
  • Scimitar — Bladesinger primary weapon since s14.
  • Cloak of Protection — gifted by Sevryn in session 11.
  • Spellbook (standard Bladesinger kit, including Shadow Blade cast for the first time in [37] and Find Familiar ritualised every session since s8).

Familiar

Terry summoned an owl familiar via Find Familiar in session 8 [4], naming it Earthwing after the abortive s3 PC of the same name — a deliberate reuse, treated as the owl-version of the same in-fiction character. The owl was shot down on its first scouting flight at the Black Vein Quarry by an unseen sniper (s8) and has been re-summoned at need; the s16 owl is presumed dead per the recap’s references. Terry’s reaction to the first downing was “There better be something that killed my familiar I’m coming to find you motherfucker” [38].

Penalties

  • Permanent -1 Charisma for failing the Performance check on the Rite of Returning at Harvo’s funeral [5]. Terry was not yet proficient in Performance; the DM imposed the stat penalty as a ritual-significant consequence. The ruling stands.
  • “Crybaby points” / negative inspiration: ongoing DM-applied -1d4 penalties accumulated as Terry’s player has griped. Still active or referenced as a running joke as of the latest sessions.

Campaign role

Terry joined the party at the Still Current Inn in Mirestrand in session 4, alongside the Black Mask and the introduction of Hugo’s Project Veilbreak backstory, replacing the briefly-played Earthwing the Owlin cameo of session 3. Through the Warrens arc he was the table’s bard / generalist support; in session 5 he failed a Deception attempt to bluff the Hollow Guardians (“we are servants of the hollow”, [39] but the encounter was talked through. By session 6 he had quietly become a wizard. In session 8 he ritualised Find Familiar for the first time and summoned Earthwing the owl. In session 9 he delivered the funeral attempt for Harvo and took his permanent Charisma loss. He has carried on as the party’s wizard, declaring his Bladesinger build path in s11 and locking it in at the end of s14. He debuted Bladesong in s15 to immediate lethal effect — a beheading on a nat-20 scimitar attack — and in session 16 he stood between two pipes during Vasquez’s sewer-water electrification stunt and remained dry while Caelumn took 7 lightning damage from the conducting water [40].

He has not died. He has been demoted in social capability and is gathering inspiration deficits, and the DM still uses “crybaby points” as a cudgel.

In session 17, with Vasquez and Althea retconned out (captured by Aurelians at the end of s16 and now departed offscreen - not pending rescue), Terry greeted the two new PCs Mike and Steven with the session’s defining table-meta line — “Welcome, and I warn you, we never make comments about US politics in this group, ever” [10] — and warned Mike to hide his spellbook on principle around the Aurelian-patrolled coast. In the s17 Rimeclaw Skulker combat [41], Terry passed the initial surprise Dex save on a nat 20 [42], Absorbed Elements on the Skulker’s frost-breath line to take 8 instead of 16 cold [12], activated Bladesong on his own turn [13], missed both scimitar attacks against the Skulker on the same turn (“the most disappointing round I’ve had as a blade singer”, [43], and reactively cast Silvery Barbs to reroll a water-wolf nat-20 bite on Mike — the reroll itself came up another nat 20 (the table immediately flagged “1 in 400”, [44] and Mike Shield-blocked the second roll for 0 damage [45]. Terry’s resource sheet at session-end: Bladesong concentration active, one 1st-level slot spent on Absorb Elements, one 1st-level slot spent on Silvery Barbs.

In session 18, Terry opened with the table-meta recap [14], covering the s17 retcon, the breath-hold-bet pact, the Black Mask renegotiation, the Nessa correction, and the cliffhanger combat. In the reef-line resolution he hit the Brinemaw Wyrm twice with the glass sword for 14 total damage [15]. In the catfish encounter he was caught in the Round-1 acid breath (DC 14, full 45 damage) and burned Absorb Elements to mitigate to 11 [16]. He tried and abandoned Elminster’s Illusion after Nick ruled “dragon breath would be draconic magic. However, this is biological” [46]. He took 1 level of exhaustion from the open-ocean swim [17]. The Earthwing owl-familiar status remains as it was.

The Bladesong ruling and stand-down [18]

At Mike’s execution Terry initially planned to activate Bladesong subtly under the cover of his bagpipes playing “God Save the Queen” [47], claiming it as a martial feature, not a spell. He had reasoned in advance that Bladesong was his single safe play in Aurelia: “the only reason I even said I’d come to this bloody region was the fact that I knew I could bladesong and it wouldn’t be magical because it’s the only thing i can fucking do here” [48]. Nick consulted ChatGPT mid-table and adopted the answer as canon: “in Aurelia, the question is not did you cast a spell. It is, are you using unsanctioned arcane power” [49]. Bladesong is detected. Terry stood down: “I am a peaceful observer who has absolutely no abilities. I’m turning around and gonna find a boat” [50].

Post-execution pivot to “fuck it mentality” [19]

After Mike’s body had been buried and the patrol had walked off, Terry’s posture flipped: “well, now I’ve just got a fuck it mentality. I’m just going to go full cast to it. There’s no point trying to hide it anymore. We’re just going to have to fight our way through every Aurelian pack” [19]. The pivot reframes the rest of the Aurelia detour as an open-conflict run rather than a stealth one. Nick noted he would put together a curated list of arcane-vs-non-arcane spells for the party going forward [51]. Terry’s same-scene celebration on the True Strike radiant-damage ruling - “Thank fuck I can actually do something. I’m a paladin. I’m a total paladin musician” [52] - is the rules-side resolution of the new posture; True Strike with radiant damage is arcane in origin (pending Nick’s curated list) but Terry will be casting it visibly regardless.

Session 19: the homesick chicken

In session 19 Terry carried the new “fuck it” posture into the field while quietly opening up his backstory. In the planning debate he floated using an insider to get the party into Aurelia, reaching for “that Chumlee guy you used to know” as the model — “if he was out there there might be others who can blend in but opposing the regime” [20] — a nod to Chris’s deceased s2-s3 PC as an example of an Aurelian-aligned insider. On his night watch Terry’s Arcanthys homesickness surfaced: the DM played up that the call to destiny had been harder than he assumed, and Terry, low and hungry, longed to go “back home to a canvas” to see his mother and father and to find his sister’s song [22]. The session also added a backstory beat: “my backstory is slightly being retconned towards me being raised by a rat in the sewers underneath Arcanthus” [21], tying Terry’s origin to the sewers of his home city.

In the night-camp fey ambush, the Pixie Polymorphed Terry into a chicken [23], which sidelined his blades for a round. He kept up the open-casting stance he adopted in s18 — “we’re already running away from the anti-magic zone. I fucking bring it, I don’t give a shit” [24] — and his Silvery Barbs counter reached 3 for the session, the third use turning a wisp’s natural-20 (27 lightning) on Caelumn into a miss; Terry pointed out that every Silvery Barbs that night had been spent for someone else’s benefit, mostly Caelumn’s [25]. His standout play came late: with the wisps invisible and humming around him, he killed one by attacking “on sound” — “you managed to actually kill one of them while invisible. That’s quite impressive” [26].

Status at session 18

Alive. Walking inland from the unnamed Aurelian-coast landfall site, one day from the White Lantern Shrine, post-patrol-encounter and post-Mike-burial. Permanent -1 CHA still in effect. Crybaby points still on the books. One level of exhaustion from the swim (cleared on the cottage long rest, then re-checked at session end - state unclear, flagged). Bladesong now classified as detectable arcane power in Aurelia per the s18 ruling; Terry’s stealth approach is closed. New posture: cast openly and fight through patrols.

Player

Played by Chris from session 4 onward; previously played Cholmondeley (s2-s3) and (briefly) Earthwing the Owlin (s3 cameo). On Speaker-N transcripts, Chris’s track is always the Microphone channel.

Notable quotes

“Sevryn seems to be pulling people from all around the world.” — Terry, [35]

“I am no man. Sir. I am a woman. A woman.” — Terry, [29]

“I’m a smart wizard, I know not to touch things.” — Terry, [31]

“I’m a turtle. I always go last.” — Terry, [53] (recurring)

“There better be something that killed my familiar I’m coming to find you motherfucker.” — Terry, [38]

“I can’t help but notice that two of the people I’m traveling with are corrupted by demons. One’s corrupted by a dragon and one’s corrupted by the void.” — Terry, [32]

“One level of fighter, two levels of wizard. The fighter stuff’s irrelevant until I get Bladesinger.” — Terry, [6]

“I activate Bladesong.” — Terry, [8]

“I’m gonna scream slightly with my bagpipes like an angry Scotsman.” — Terry, [54]

“I’m doing a Van Damme. I’m doing the splits between the trucks.” — Terry, [55]

See also

References

  1. ^ Session 4, line 46 — First appearance, joins party (DM asks Terry to introduce his character).
  2. ^ Session 6, line 288 — First in-session evidence of wizard build ("do you want to send the wizard in first?").
  3. ^ Session 8, line 483 — Table-acknowledged respec ("you changed from Bart to Wizard, did you?").
  4. ^ Session 8, line 1589-1619 — Find Familiar ritual succeeds, Earthwing the owl summoned.
  5. ^ Session 9, line 1646 — Failed Performance check at Harvo's funeral, permanent -1 Charisma.
  6. ^ Session 11, line 1521 — Build path declared: "One level of fighter, two levels of wizard. The fighter stuff's irrelevant until I get Bladesinger.".
  7. ^ Session 14, line 1556 — Hits level 4, picks Bladesinger subclass.
  8. ^ Session 15, line 156 — First Bladesong activation in combat.
  9. ^ Session 15, line 196-199 — Natural-20 scimitar attack, beheads Aurelian recruit under Bladesong.
  10. ^ Session 17, line 29 — "Welcome, and I warn you, we never make comments about US politics in this group, ever." — greets new players Mike and Steven.
  11. ^ Session 17, line 1786, 1810-1815 — Silvery Barbs reroll on the water-wolf nat-20 bite on Mike; the reroll itself comes up nat 20 (1-in-400 interaction) and Mike Shield-blocks for 0.
  12. ^ Session 17, line 1645 — Absorb Elements on Round-1 frost-breath line (takes 8 cold instead of 16).
  13. ^ Session 17, line 1763 — Bladesong active for the s17 Rimeclaw Skulker combat.
  14. ^ Session 18, line 86 — Opening recap monologue: covers the s17 retcon, the breath-hold-bet pact, the Black Mask renegotiation, Nessa correction, and the cliffhanger combat.
  15. ^ Session 18, line 149-153 — Reef-line resolution - 14 damage on the Brinemaw Wyrm with the glass sword (silvered, non-magical; resistance flagged but kill went to Steven's crit).
  16. ^ Session 18, line 642-650 — Caught in the catfish's Round-1 acid breath (DC 14, full 45); burned Absorb Elements to mitigate to 11 damage.
  17. ^ Session 18, line 1148 — 1 level of exhaustion from the open-ocean swim.
  18. ^ Session 18, line 2167-2182 — DM Bladesong ruling consulted via ChatGPT: "in Aurelia, the question is not did you cast a spell. It is, are you using unsanctioned arcane power" - Bladesong is detected. Terry stands down: "I am a peaceful observer who has absolutely no abilities. I'm turning around and gonna find a boat".
  19. ^ Session 18, line 2324-2328 — Post-execution pivot: "well, now I've just got a fuck it mentality. We're just going to have to fight our way through every Aurelian pack".
  20. ^ Session 19, line 162 — Floats using an insider to get into Aurelia — "that Chumlee guy you used to know" (Cholmondeley) as an insider model.
  21. ^ Session 19, line 360-362 — Backstory beat — "my backstory is slightly being retconned towards me being raised by a rat in the sewers underneath Arcanthus [Arcanthys]".
  22. ^ Session 19, line 566-568 — Watch-time homesickness reverie: low and hungry, longing to go "back home to a canvas [Arcanthys]" to see his parents and find his sister's song.
  23. ^ Session 19, line 1330-1334 — Polymorphed into a chicken by the Pixie.
  24. ^ Session 19, line 1616 — Continues the "fuck it" magic stance: "we're already running away from the anti-magic zone. I fucking bring it, I don't give a shit".
  25. ^ Session 19, line 1617-1622 — Silvery Barbs counter up to 3 for the session; the third use saved Caelumn from a wisp's nat-20 (27 lightning).
  26. ^ Session 19, line 1728-1733 — Kills an invisible wisp by attacking "on sound" — "you managed to actually kill one of them while invisible".
  27. ^ Session 4, line 1048 — Inline citation.
  28. ^ Session 8, line 1619 — Inline citation.
  29. ^ Session 5, line 1280 — Inline citation.
  30. ^ Session 6, line 1583 — Inline citation.
  31. ^ Session 6, line 343 — Inline citation.
  32. ^ Session 10, line 1088 — Inline citation.
  33. ^ Session 11, line 880-884 — Inline citation.
  34. ^ Session 11, line 1584 — Inline citation.
  35. ^ Session 4, line 849 — Inline citation.
  36. ^ Session 6, line 539 — Inline citation.
  37. ^ Session 15, line 1141 — Inline citation.
  38. ^ Session 9, line 278 — Inline citation.
  39. ^ Session 5, line 908 — Inline citation.
  40. ^ Session 15, line 1163-1175 — Inline citation.
  41. ^ Session 17, line 1568-1987 — Inline citation.
  42. ^ Session 17, line 1583-1587 — Inline citation.
  43. ^ Session 17, line 1779 — Inline citation.
  44. ^ Session 17, line 1810 — Inline citation.
  45. ^ Session 17, line 1815 — Inline citation.
  46. ^ Session 18, line 678 — Inline citation.
  47. ^ Session 18, line 2142 — Inline citation.
  48. ^ Session 18, line 2162 — Inline citation.
  49. ^ Session 18, line 2176 — Inline citation.
  50. ^ Session 18, line 2182 — Inline citation.
  51. ^ Session 18, line 2352 — Inline citation.
  52. ^ Session 18, line 2340-2346 — Inline citation.
  53. ^ Session 6, line 3129 — Inline citation.
  54. ^ Session 15, line 187 — Inline citation.
  55. ^ Session 15, line 1147 — Inline citation.