Desmund Flemming

**Desmund Flemming** is a Half-Orc Path of the Storm Herald Barbarian; he was initially played by Stevie, and later became an NPC.

## Backstory

The twin brother of Desdemona Flemming and a resident of Focksford, Desmund spent a good deal of his time drinking and fighting at The Starry Knight tavern. While there, he witnessed the party of Gray, Cole, Shadowtail, and Wintersky take a job to retrieve a missing cleric; as they left, he followed them, but was approached by a man at a cart who offered him a ring that would make him more powerful. Desmund accepted the ring and put it on, at which point he fell under the effects of a *Confusion* spell and was no longer aware of his own actions.

He then followed the party to a jeweler where he proposed joining them in their task. They accepted, and he headed with the group to the abandoned ruins of the Temple of Vynth in the Prismatic Forest outside of town. As they entered the Temple, six skeletons emerged from the graveyard outside and attacked; while the rest of the party battled, Desmund rushed to a hallway at the back of the building while suffering repeated injuries, convinced that he would find something called "fembois" there. Instead, he found a staircase leading downward, and the party rested shortly to heal after destroying the skeletons.

They then descended the stairs to quickly encountered a platoon of kobolds, and while Shadowtail spoke with them in Draconic, Desmund proceeded to hug and kiss three of them despite being stabbed by two of them for it. The party successfully negotiated with the kobolds, who retreated back into their tunnel as the party continued searching the ruins of the Temple. Desmund joins Cole and Shadowtail as they investigate a prison cell in which a covered item hangs on the wall, and when Cole removes the cover, Desmund vanishes from the room, being drawn into an extradimensional cell within a Mirror of Life Trapping.

Moments later, he finds himself back in the prison cell within the Temple along with ten other creatures, including two more Kobolds, three Duergar, three Goblins, a Quaggoth, a Darkling Elder, a Drow woman, and a Dwarven man as Wintersky and Gray shattered the mirror and released all of its prisoners. In the chaos, the Duergar turn invisible, the Darkling casts *Darkness*, and all of the creatures flee; a few minutes later, the Darkness disperses, and Desmund hugs the Drow before stabbing the Dwarf, who starts to cast *Inflict Wounds* before the Drow casts *Sleep* on the Half-Orc.

Wintersky casts *Identify* on the Barbarian to discover that he is being affected by a *Confusion* spell, and the Dwarf searches him to find that he's wearing a ring with a glowing gem while he removes and shatters. Desmund wakes shortly after, unsure of where he is or who the party are: the last thing he remembers is seeing them at the tavern and then leaving to catch up with them. The party head back into the hallway, now hearing chanting through a pair of large stone doors, but decide to investigate the temple dormitory first before returning to the hallway where Desmund attacks the locked stone doors, delivering a fierce blow with his greataxe that greatly damaging the doors.

The Drow casts *Knock* to unlock the door, and the group proceeds inside to battle a cult attempting to summon demonic Cacklers from the Abyss into the Material Plane. Desmund kills one of the cultists and destroys one of the Cacklers as the party defeats the cult and shatters the amulet they were using to open their portal into the Abyss. The party scavenges what they can from the cultists, and Gray sits on the altar, triggering a cave in that blocks their upward exit; Desmund attempts to move some of the stones to clear the staircase, but only manages to allow more rocks to fall through into the hallway, further blocking their escape.

The party resolves to use the kobold tunnel, heading deeper underground until they reach a split with three branches; they proceed through the middle branch, eventually entering a larger cavern where Gray hears an unfamiliar breathing before spotting movement against one wall. They convince Desmund to investigate, and he approaches to discover that the creature is a feral grick that then attacks him; he tries to fight against it to keep it from attacking the rest of the party, and Sarsen casts healing spells to help him, but he is unable to defeat the grick himself and is instead killed by it.

Some time later, Desmund finds himself conscious within the darkness of the cavern near his own dead body, and realizes that his soul now lingers on the Material Plane in the form of an incorporeal phantom.

## Appearances

* "The Tessera Contract"
* "The Cult of the Cackler"
* "Death of a Storm Herald" (death)
* "What Dreams May Come" (dream)
* "Unfinished Business" (phantom)
* "What's Real and What's Not" (phantom)