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No Place For a Prince or Princess is the third episode of season 15, Neverafter.
Intro[]
"Hello, one and all! Welcome back to another thrilling episode of "Dimension 20: Neverafter." I am your humble Dungeon Master, Brennan Lee Mulligan. With me, as always, are our Intrepid Heroes. [...] Say "hi," Intrepid Heroes.
[...] Last we left off, we were just inside the borders of the fallen kingdom of Elegy, home of what was once a bustling populace with a young prince and princess married during a ball, something around a glass slipper and a girl who'd been discovered and freed from the clutches of her wicked Stepmother, a fairytale you and I might know as Cinderella, but discovered only long after the fact by the heroes of the Neverafter. Having plunged into the forest, guided by the scent tracking abilities of Little Red Riding Hood and the forest husbandry and wilderness skills of the princess Rosamund du Prix, aka Sleeping Beauty, we arrived here to discover a mob of partially transformed warriors. Yes, it seems that the horrifying injury, the shard of glass embedded in the chest of the Fairy Godmother, is taking a little toll on her magic, not quite the touch with a transformation spell that she once was. Some noise in the forest, some strategy, some determination, having led you to this place, knowing that the book requires the shard of glass embedded in the chest of the Fairy Godmother, your noise has alerted her to you presence, but you will notice that you are obscured in terms of line of sight. The hillock there has still kept you hidden, even though your location generally is known. [...] An army of animated, partially transformed constructs swivels around to gaze into the dark forest from the rotting pumpkin carriage, and, as they do, some of those here will be first to act."
Content Warnings[]
This episode contains the following content warnings at the given timecodes
- Body horror (throughout)
- Depictions of dead animals (throughout)
- Mind control (throughout)
- Forced transformation (throughout)
- Harm to children (throughout)
- Harm to animals (throughout)
- Flashing Video (2:25 - 2:58) (2:14:47-2:15:05)
- Death of a child (1:51:50, 2:05:50)
- Death of an animal (2:01:30)
Synopsis[]
The party leaps into battle against the Fairy Godmother. They have been separated into Team “Distraction” (Princess Rosamund du Prix, Ylfa Snorgelsson, and Pinocchio), and Team “Extraction” (Puss in Boots, Prince Gerard of Greenleigh, and “Mother” Timothy Goose) in an attempt to remove the glass from the godmother’s chest.
Rosamund and Ylfa run into battle loudly, proclaiming princess statuses. The godmother notices, inquiring Rosamund about her life, and insisting that her minions make her comfortable. However, she performs a spell on the two of them that gives them visions of the fairies that cursed Rosamund as a baby, and cost them great damage. Gerard insists to a nervous Timothy and Pinocchio that they are now all on Team Extraction, as the distraction has already occurred.
Pib, who has been jumping from animal carcass to animal carcass in an attempt to hide, comes across a living mule who is playing dead. The two recognize each other form Marienne where Alphonse, the mule, belonged to Marquis Tomas de Carabas’s father, Ricard. They exchange angry, panicked words as the fight continues. Around him, the inanimate objects scattered across the battlefield have begun to come to life.
The Fairy Godmother asks Rosamund about her true love, who still insists that he’s coming to save her eventually. The godmother claims “they” have taken that from her, and insinuates that his face changing in the book implies that he doesn’t exist. Rosamund asks how she knows about that to no response.
Summoning his magic and revealing the identity of his patron, Pinocchio becomes possessed by the spirit of the Stepmother, who clearly knows the godmother personally. She threatens the godmother using Pinocchio’s body, both frightening Pinocchio and the godmother herself. It isn’t until now that Gerard recognizes the Fairy Godmother as the fairy who cursed him to turn into a frog as a child.
Pib tries to explain to the fairy that he is only here to heal her, which she happily believes, and asks if he has been sent by Princess Cinderella, who stabbed her in the first place. He engages in conversation with her, attempting to charm his way through the encounter, which has been working. The rest of the party commits to extraction.
After Pinocchio is hexed, he falls unconscious, causing Timothy to tell the Fairy Godmother that Cinderella has gathered the mice and intends to attack. She believes him, vaguely distracted, before Gerard falls unconscious as well. Pib’s charms are beginning to fail as the godmother explains that she wishes for it to be Cinderella herself who removes the glass. She attacks him, and just after, Rosamund drops as well. Timothy heals Gerard enough to get him back on his feet while Ylfa falls unconscious.
The Fairy Godmother recognizes Gerard, calling him foolish. He sees Timothy fall unconscious as well, and in an attempt to be courageous, tries to pull the shard out himself. The Fairy Godmother panics, desperately pleading with him, claiming that they are on the same side. However, uncontrollably, as soon as the glass is pulled out of her body, he stabs it into his own chest. Though the Fairy Godmother is dead, Gerard is now, too, unconscious, and the minions are still active.
One by one, multiple of the members of the party die, starting with Pinocchio and ending, finally, with Ylfa, whose last words are “once upon a time.” Each sees their ideas of “the good times” and what they hoped their futures were meant to be after the Times of Shadow, before finally dying. Timothy and Gerard stay stabilized, but die after mysterious visions of their loved ones plague them. This marks Dimension 20’s first ever TPK.
Locations[]
Elegy
Characters[]
Players[]
- Prince Gerard of Greenleigh
- Puss in Boots
- Pinocchio
- Mother Timothy Goose
- Ylfa Snorgelsson
- Princess Rosamund du Prix
New[]
- Alphonse the Mule
- Geppetto (vision)
- Big Bad Wolf (vision)
Returning[]
- Fairy Godmother
- Fairy Godmother's Minions
- Princess Elody (vision)
- The Gander (vision)
Mentioned[]
- Ricard
- The Stepmother
- Cinderella
- Turquina
- Il Terribile Pescecane
- Tomas
- Grandmother Snorgelsson
- Henry Hubbard
Trivia[]
- This is the first time a TPK (Total Party Kill) has occurred in Dimension 20 history. Despite this, the Intrepid Heroes actually do carry out the party's objective (something Brian Murphy points out on more than one occasion).