Will of the Dice- Through the Shattered Gate

John Cretsinger

The moment you step through the shattered gate, warmth dies. The world you knew — its colors, its breath, its time — all vanish like a memory you were never meant to keep. Welcome... to the Nightveil. This is the place where the gods go to die — or worse, to be forgotten. The sky above you isn’t sky at all, but a great and endless wound of black, stitched by veins of flickering red light. Beneath your feet, the land is jagged and gray, as if shaped by sorrow more than stone. Forests of petrified bone groan in the windless dark. Mountains float, unanchored. Rivers run backwards, carrying not water, but secrets too heavy to hold. Here, nothing remembers you. Not the air. Not the stars. Not even your name. And yet, something watches. Forgotten gods, stripped of power but not of will, stir beneath the earth and behind the veils. Their temples lie buried, their followers long dust… but still, they dream. And in those dreams, they whisper: “You should not have come here.” But it is too late now. The path back has vanished. The Nightveil has taken hold — and you are not the first to walk among its shadows. You are only the first in a long time… to walk with purpose. read less
Fiction

Episodes

Through the Shattered Gate Ep 1 Gate of Shadows
5d ago
Through the Shattered Gate Ep 1 Gate of Shadows
!!Tech difficulties caused majority of audio to be missing !! The moment you step through the shattered gate, warmth dies.The world you knew — its colors, its breath, its time — all vanish like a memory you were never meant to keep.Welcome... to the Nightveil.This is the place where the gods go to die — or worse, to be forgotten.The sky above you isn’t sky at all, but a great and endless wound of black, stitched by veins of flickering red light. Beneath your feet, the land is jagged and gray, as if shaped by sorrow more than stone. Forests of petrified bone groan in the windless dark. Mountains float, unanchored. Rivers run backwards, carrying not water, but secrets too heavy to hold.Here, nothing remembers you. Not the air. Not the stars. Not even your name.And yet, something watches.Forgotten gods, stripped of power but not of will, stir beneath the earth and behind the veils. Their temples lie buried, their followers long dust… but still, they dream. And in those dreams, they whisper:“You should not have come here.”But it is too late now. The path back has vanished.The Nightveil has taken hold — and you are not the first to walk among its shadows.You are only the first in a long time… to walk with purpose. CAST Grace - Ashe Ragna - Ames Kalibrynn - Loch Elun'dar - Ricky   Music by Patrick Taylor AKA Peculiar Patrick Jeff Farber Ames Duergar Michael Ghelfi Kevin McLeod   Chapters (00:00:00) - Sorry to Report This To You...(00:01:39) - D&D: The Night Vale Recap(00:04:14) - D&D: Audio Lockdown(00:05:06) - A compass of the gods(00:07:08) - Welcome to the Night Vale(00:09:43) - The Compass of Darkvision(00:14:47) - Hello, Gamers!
Through the Shattered Gate EP 4 Pasco
5d ago
Through the Shattered Gate EP 4 Pasco
The party rescued Grace from a sarcophagus after defeating a mirror monster, discovering she had been kidnapped by mistake - the true target was Antivar. A hidden message on a sketch revealed "Pasco at sunrise" as their next destination. After healing Haraza's wing with divine magic and emerging from the underground chamber, they traveled through a hellish wasteland to reach Pasco, a refugee town protected by magical lanterns. There they learned the mayor's daughter Sunrise had drawn the sketch during prophetic dreams and had stopped speaking four days ago, coinciding with attacks on the town's protective wards.The party volunteered to help eliminate the threat - a memory-devouring creature called the Heart of Forgetting that had been sabotaging the lanterns with anti-light obsidian. After tracking the fiend to a crystal cave filled with stolen memories, they engaged in fierce battle, with Grace delivering the killing blow using Power Word Kill. However, when Kalibrynn decapitated the creature as a trophy, he became cursed and faced transformation into the same type of monster. Through a painful ritual involving Ragna and the mystic Gala, the curse was removed, but the process triggered Kalibrynn's suppressed memories of infiltrating and betraying a cult - including his genuine love for a cult member. In a spiritual encounter, his deceased lover's spirit forgave him and gave him a ribbon as a token of their love, leaving Kalibrynn emotionally overwhelmed as he walked into the night to process these revelations.   CAST Grace - Ashe Ragna - Ames Kalibrynn - Loch Elun'dar - Ricky   Music by Patrick Taylor AKA Peculiar Patrick Jeff Farber Ames Duergar Michael Ghelfi Kevin McLeod Chapters (00:00:00) - Will of the Dice(00:01:12) - Dr. Phil(00:01:57) - Will the Dice(00:04:30) - Meet The Lock Unruly(00:08:05) - D&D 5(00:12:24) - D&D: Kidnapping(00:18:31) - Pasco at sunrise(00:23:17) - Sarcophagus Found in the Graveyard(00:25:52) - Haraza(00:28:19) - Ragnar's heart set on finding Antivar(00:30:08) - The Alchemist and the Drake(00:31:48) - Door opens into a stairwell(00:35:51) - Survival Skills in the Wasteland(00:37:58) - Travelling Through the Night Vale(00:39:44) - POLICE ARRIVAL IN PASCO(00:46:20) - A Night at the Valley(00:47:15) - Meet the mayor of Belly of the Moon(00:52:51) - Dwarfs at the Belly of the Moon(00:58:01) - The Dinner With The Dwarves(01:00:51) - Whispers During the Ward Meeting(01:03:49) - How to Deal with a Rogue(01:07:45) - Undertaker: How to bring the dead back to life(01:13:12) - "Give My Diamonds to My Grave"(01:13:47) - Elendar Raises the Dead(01:21:04) - D&D 5(01:23:45) - How Long Has This Been Going On?(01:24:55) - Six Shadow Lanterns Found(01:25:45) - The Night of Antivar(01:31:46) - D&D 5(01:37:14) - D&D 5e(01:38:54) - The Way Out of Pasco(01:42:54) - D&D 7, Night Fiend(01:46:42) - The Way of the Warrior(01:48:25) - A Night Skeleton in the Woods(01:54:51) - Best Songs For Guys Who Are 21(01:55:23) - D&D 5e(02:01:40) - Bardic Sword(02:02:48) - D&D 4(02:07:24) - Fighting Fiends at 4(02:10:49) - The Primal Unicorn vs a Fish(02:15:26) - Elder Champion vs Warlock(02:21:12) - D&D 5(02:25:00) - D&D 5e(02:30:48) - D&D 4(02:34:55) - THE HIPPIE HOUSE(02:40:13) - How to Detect a Warlock's Aura(02:45:48) - The Making of a Ring of Crystal(02:46:35) - The Return of the Goddess(02:53:25) - A Taste of D&D: The End(02:56:50) - A Taste of D&D
Through the Shattered Gate EP 3 Lack of Grace
5d ago
Through the Shattered Gate EP 3 Lack of Grace
Show LessCopy to Session   The session began with the party discovering their draconic companion Haraza severely wounded with one wing brutally severed by Antivar. After healing Haraza and securing the dangerous Chaos Stone in Ragna's alms box, the party investigated the Well of Souls where Ragna discovered an ancient letter revealing the terrifying process of divine ascension. Their investigation was interrupted when they realized Grace was missing - signs of struggle led them through a hidden passage into the wasteland, following tracks despite worsening weather and bone-filled winds.The pursuit led to an impossible floating structure suspended in silver skies, covered in mirrors with independently moving reflections. After navigating dangerous rotating bridges and solving puzzles involving statues of Grace holding colored crystals, the party entered the sanctum through a mirror portal. They faced the Mirror Warden, a tall figure of seamless silver who guarded "the choice to remember Grace" in this place unbound by time or truth. Following an intense battle where the Warden teleported through mirrors and attacked with devastating precision, Ragna's final strikes with her transformed obsidian glaive destroyed the creature in a shower of reflective fragments. The session concluded with the party discovering a mechanical sarcophagus containing a mysterious shrouded figure, whose identity remained concealed as they pulled the body free. CAST Grace - Ashe Ragna - Ames Kalibrynn - Loch Elun'dar - Ricky   Music by Peculiar Patrick Jeff Farber Ames Duergar Michael Ghelfi Kevin McLeod     Chapters (00:00:00) - D&D: Through the Shattered Gate(00:01:25) - Dr. Feelgood(00:02:12) - Red Panda Dice and Pandas(00:04:42) - D&D 5e(00:11:40) - Antivar's Chaos Stone(00:16:19) - THE WELL OF SOULS(00:23:19) - Antivar's Need for Souls(00:30:05) - The Gate of the Shattered Veil(00:36:25) - Suspects search for Grace(00:42:50) - D&D 4, Hidden Door(00:46:23) - Fae and a Celestial: Find Grace(00:53:25) - Who Is the Fastest Elf?(00:55:01) - Elendar on a White Elk(00:56:29) - D&D: An Imperfection(01:00:53) - D&D 7, The Hall of Echoes(01:08:13) - The Chaos Stone and Crystal(01:14:54) - Black Crystal and a Mirror(01:17:29) - The Secret to Tomb Raider(01:20:57) - D&D 5(01:24:01) - The Wardens of the Mirror(01:26:45) - Back to Work!(01:28:02) - D&D 5e(01:30:37) - D&D 8, Hunter's Mark(01:35:10) - D&D 5e(01:39:24) - D&D 10(01:45:16) - Elder Champion vs. Obsidian Knight(01:50:20) - D&D 8(01:56:35) - Melding with the Dragon(01:58:44) - D&D 8(02:03:51) - D&D 5e(02:08:10) - Seen On Social Media(02:09:13) - Happy Pride Month!
Through the Shattered Gate EP 2 Ash, Bone and Blood
5d ago
Through the Shattered Gate EP 2 Ash, Bone and Blood
The party journeyed through a nightmarish wasteland of bone dust and black salt, following Ragna's compass toward their enemy Antivar Levray. After weathering a massive sandstorm in Grace's magical shelter, they battled a towering undead golem that burst from the sand. Despite the creature dealing devastating damage to Ragna, the party destroyed it through coordinated attacks, with Ragna delivering the killing blow using Destructive Wave. As the wounded sky began raining acidic black globules that spawned parasitic worms, the party witnessed increasingly horrific creatures in a grotesque food chain before reaching a cannibal camp made of flesh and bone, where a prophet spoke of feasting on gods and "the blue one" who promised powerful flesh would come.After the world mysteriously spun and the cannibal camp vanished, the party reached ancient temple ruins at the exact point of creation for their world. They discovered the temple was built by an ancient telepathic race and contained three doors requiring them to split up by race. Each member experienced mystical trials - Grace forged a mithril warhammer, Ragna planted seeds while singing unknown songs, and Elun'dar wrote his life story with supernatural eloquence. In the final chamber, they confronted Antivar at the Well of Souls, where he threatened to drop the catastrophic Stone of Tears. Though they reluctantly agreed to let him pass, Antivar proved his cunning by tossing the stone to Ragna as a distraction before going invisible, with the session ending as Kalibrynn's arrows found their mark despite Antivar's escape attempt.   CAST Grace - Ashe Ragna - Ames Kalibrynn - Loch Elun'dar - Ricky   Music by Peculiar Patrick Jeff Farber Ames Duergar Michael Ghelfi Kevin McLeod     Chapters (00:00:00) - Will of the Dice(00:01:34) - Red Panda Dice and Dwarf Dice Plushie(00:04:29) - D&D 5(00:06:57) - The Night Veil(00:08:48) - The Wanderer in the Wastelands(00:11:12) - D&D 7: Sandstorm(00:13:17) - Leomon's Tiny Hut(00:15:09) - Skulls Found in the Desert(00:16:38) - D&D 5e(00:22:02) - Dorkzilla Returns to the Show(00:22:55) - D&D 5(00:28:50) - D&D 5/5(00:35:36) - Can't cast a spell with bonus action(00:36:03) - D&D 8(00:42:19) - D&D 8(00:45:16) - D&D 7, Seer Undead(00:48:39) - D&D 5(00:53:09) - D&D 5(01:00:06) - All right, Ellendor, you're up. So I'm gonna kind of hold up my staff of healing here(01:01:28) - D&D 5(01:05:14) - Ragna vs El(01:08:46) - D&D 5e(01:14:43) - Dressing for the Bleeding Storm(01:18:51) - D&D: Fighting the dragon skeletons(01:24:43) - Ragna is a plus five from me(01:25:45) - Talosh(01:28:07) - Worms have started to eat each other(01:30:05) - The Night Watch(01:34:39) - The Battle of the Wastelands(01:37:37) - Ragnar and Ragno awake(01:39:10) - Caustic Camp(01:42:23) - D&D: Pass Without Trace(01:44:20) - Cannibal Camp(01:49:51) - Elven Cultures of the Old Gods(01:55:26) - D&D 5e(02:00:32) - Aragorn and the circle(02:04:49) - Antivar(02:06:24) - Antivar's Disappearance(02:12:03) - D&D 4(02:15:53) - Dressing up as a dwarf(02:21:33) - Dwarf and Human(02:22:02) - Caliburn on His Changeling(02:24:21) - Deception at the Dwarven Forge(02:30:43) - D&D 5(02:37:05) - Let the Devil Pass Through(02:44:02) - D&D 5e(02:49:32) - Hello, How Are You?