Tempered Soul/Usage Log
Tempered Soul Usage Log
A running record of every time a member of Deez Nuts spends Tempered Soul. The feat was granted to the whole party when they signed the Compact in Session 50, so the log begins there.
Why we track this: Tempered Soul is meant to be narrated, not just rolled. Per the DM's rule [1]: each use, the player tells the table what they are feeling, what they are using it to empower, and how they envision that power coming about. And because contested channels of an ember are what grow it (crystallizing it, then kindling it into a flare, and on up the ladder), the log separates base d4 spends from ember and flare spends. What you log is what your soul becomes.
How a use is logged
The hex-crawl app's Soul panel is the recorder: the character (or the DM) picks the die, the ember or flare it came from, and the roll it applied to, and writes what rose in them. The app appends one line to the App record at the bottom of this page and refreshes the character's tracker page. The tables below hold the spends made before the app.
- Die — the base d4, an ember d6, or a flare d8. If the table never said which and the result doesn't prove it (a rolled 5 or 6 can only be the d6), it is logged as the d4.
- Empowered — the exact roll or effect, with the math: base roll + die(result) = total.
- Feeling & how they described it — the emotion, memory, or instinct, quoted verbatim where it was spoken.
- Outcome — did the soul die change the result?
Prelude — the return strikes [1]
Before the feat was formally granted, each soul returning from the Hells imbued one action with more power than they had ever managed — the DM had each player roll a d4, add it, and describe what they felt. These six simultaneous strikes killed Arauthator (89 damage, all at once). They are the feat's origin, logged here for the record and not counted in the tally.
| Character | Empowered | Feeling & how described (quote) | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyleth | Longbow shot (the first strike; Hunter's Mark re-cast) — 16 + d4(2) = 18 | Infernal rage: "Well, some infernal rage I felt, I believe. Anger. And, pixies were all fired up. They're more swarm and bug-like. And so I channeled a lot of that, the rage into it, and drew back my bow, and… let loose." | Hit — and time itself slowed after her arrow, letting the others strike as one |
| Xanphina | Returning Trident throw — 17 + d4 | Rage at the whole ordeal: "Obviously, rage. Rage at… how long and hard I already have been fighting him. And having gone literally to hell and back. And still being here fighting him… I felt it as I threw my trident, and I just put all of it into the throw." | Hit |
| Baelgrum | Guiding Bolt (his first act with the party — "Dragonfight! I think I like you people already.") | Cold rage / revenge: "Anger. A need for revenge… [a dragon] actually burned my brother to death in a grain store as he was trying to protect our village. So… the past 3 years has been sort of a revenge tour on dragons and cultists. It's cold rage." | Hit |
| Karma | Blight — d4(1) added to the Constitution save DC (first-ever save-DC use) | Total conviction: "Pure confidence. I have never felt so confident that this will strike true in my entire life." | Dragon failed; Blight burned deep |
| Shade | Chromatic Orb (4th level) — 24 to hit + d4 | Power: "I'm feeling super fucking smart. And… powerful. And so I'm just, like, putting all my power into it." | Hit |
| Gootcha | Silence — 20-ft sphere over the dragon, d4 rolled into the effect | The Raven Queen: "I am feeling annoyed. And I am also feeling the Raven Queen through me. Tell[ing] me to silence him. And end him." | The kill landed in eerie, total silence |
Usage by character
All S50–S51 spends predate the first crystallized embers (S52) and are base d4 by definition.
Baelgrum
| # | Session | Die | Empowered | Feeling & how described (quote) | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S50 | d4 | Attack — last charge of his Orb of Dragon's Breath (fire) vs. the Hydra | Revulsion → protectiveness: "I'm feeling revulsion seeing this monstrosity on my friggin' boat. And I am channeling this energy to protect my new friends." | +3 → hit (24); 23 damage, Hydra down to two heads |
| 2 | S50 | d4 | Save DC — raised the Wisdom save DC of his 4th-level Spirit Guardians vs. the Dragon Turtle to 19 | Confidence + protectiveness + awe: "I'm feeling… Confidence? … want to sort of protect these [good] people. I'm also feeling bewilderment at all the shit I've seen in… the one day I've been with this group." | Turtle rolled a natural 1, failed the DC 19; 19 radiant + speed halved |
| 3 | S51 | d4 | Wisdom save (DC 15) — volunteering to open Halvard's bolted chest of 3,000 red coins | Duty to strangers: "…while I was not involved in this particular escapade to start this, I am feeling like it is necessary for us to try and help these people out." | 12 + d4(4) = 16 — the d4 was the whole margin; avoided the curse's failed-save rider |
| 4 | S51 | d4 | Spell attack — touching the hostile dockmaster Bargus with Remove Curse (had already hit; spent it anyway; second spend without a long rest between, allowed at the table) | Responsibility / setting things right: "…we were… in a roundabout way, the cause of this. So yeah, responsibility, trying to set things right." | 28 → 31; the curse "washes through him very powerfully" — Bargus uniquely kept his memories of the coins calling to him |
| 5 | S52 | d4 (deliberate — out of domain) | Persuasion check (with advantage, from Keyleth's Insight) — getting the burned-out villagers to open up about the red dragon and the cultists. "The four banger, I think." | Personal grief: "…where I'm from, this exact thing happened. This is how I lost… chunk of my family… this is particularly personal." | Success. The roll that cracked the cult's method — a villager reveals the cultists are "working through their list… collecting more and more gold and treasure for their dragon god." |
| 6 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — the 8-day Baldur's Gate → Elturel march. 14 + d4(1) = 15 (−1 Survival, plus Keyleth's Guidance) | — none narrated: "Another one on the D4, sick." (sarcastic — a 1) | Travel resolved as uneventful |
| 7 | S52 | d6 — the first ember spend in campaign history | Save DC — 4th-level Command ("Halt") on Garrick, Vex and Keith at once. Base DC 17 + d6(4) = DC 21 | Protecting the party: "I'm… attempting to slow some of these fools down from swinging on my friends." | Devastating — all three failed and lost their whole turn. The single most load-bearing spend of the ambush. |
| 8 | S53 | d4 (deliberate — "this is not necessarily protecting") | Save DC — 4th-level Fireball vs. the undead horde; d4(1) → DC 18 for the dragonborn cultist only (the one-creature ruling was made on this spend) | Vengeance: "My guy's pissed… he wants to send these guys back to hell." | Dragonborn failed; zombies incinerated; the dragonborn left bloodied |
| 9 | S53 | d6 | Save DC — Command ("Halt") (1st level) on the second blue dragon wyrmling; d6(2) → DC 19 | Protective calm: "…now I just want to protect Gootcha and Will." (Will down; Gootcha exposed on the wall.) | Failed — the wyrmling halted mid-air, could only land, and died to Gootcha. The spend that grounded the fight's last flier. |
| 10 | S54 | d6 | Save DC — 2nd-level Command ("Approach") on the Yuan-ti Anathema (advantage on saves vs. magic); d6(6) → DC 24 — the maximum roll | Protection, plus civic pest-control: "Not only am I trying to protect my friends, I'm also trying to rid this town of this sneaky-headed asshole." | Unbeatable — DM: "He can't, he fails." The silenced, poisoned anathema was dragged through the wolf pack and died before arriving. |
| 11 | S54 | d4 | Harvest check — the Anathema; 14 + d4(3) + Guidance(3) = 20, exactly the Very Rare DC | Providing for the party: "Want to build up some good stuff to protect the homies." | His best smithing harvest yet — the Anathema Scale Coat |
| 12 | S55 | d6 (named: "there's my D6. Come on, baby." — rolled a 3) | Save DC — Scrying (5th level, his first casting) on Varram the White, keyed to the purple wyrmspeaker's thread and his 1,000-gp crystal; d6(3) added to the save DC, with Guidance over his shoulder | The quest, and the one who matters: "This target is specifically important to our quest… pretty much one of the figureheads of this whole deal." | The vision came through — Varram revealed as a prisoner of the yuan-ti, tortured in a windowless cell, pleading for her life. The reveal that reframed the whole pursuit. |
Keyleth
| # | Session | Die | Empowered | Feeling & how described (quote) | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S50 | d4 | Attack — longbow reaction shot (Captain Larusta's command) vs. the Hydra | Fear/anger: "I can't think of an inspiration right now. Other than fear, I'm very upset about the dead people up front, angry, as usual…" | Hit; 12 damage + 4 Hunter's Mark |
| 2 | S50 | d4 | Harvesting roll — Dragon Turtle carcass (d4 = 1) | Vengeful & righteous: "…I find myself relishing it more than I probably would have in the past. Feeling vengeful and righteous." | Result deferred |
| 3 | S51 | d4 | Wisdom save — retconned onto the psychic pulse from the first coin-melt | Ancestral guidance: "Channel the wisdom of my elders… Feeling pretty confident in that role." | Shielded her mind from the infernal pulse |
| 4 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — day 3 of the Luskan → Neverwinter march | Teenage angst: "…my survival has not been as easy every day… a lot of angst, teenage angst almost." | Day passed uneventfully |
| 5 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — the night's camp. 25 + d4(1) = 26 — the highest of the party | Anger for the villagers: "…it's more of anger and frustration at what the villagers went through." | Carried the group to an excellent night's rest |
| 6 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — the Baldur's Gate → Elturel march. 18 + d4(2) = 20 | — none narrated | Travel uneventful |
| 7 | S52 | d4 | Damage — Worm Reaver hit on Vex, "Whopping two more" (the spend that later produced the damage-is-legal ruling) | Indignant fury: "…how dare he get all up in my business and lay hand upon me." | +2 damage; Vex left "still standing, but barely" |
| 8 | S53 | d6 | Damage — the killing of the first blue dragon wyrmling, stacked on her super-inspiration auto-crit. In-domain: "it's your hunter's [aspect], basically" — her prey, found and struck | Declared through action rather than narration — the killing shot itself | Killed the wyrmling — ensnared out of the sky, pixies desecrating the corpse |
| 9 | S54 | d6 | Harvest check — the Anathema; 14 + d6(3) + Guidance(3) = 20, exactly the Very Rare DC. In-domain by name: harvesting the deserving dead | — none narrated; she self-targeted Guidance | Recovered the Heat-Pit Clusters; the d6 was part of the exact margin |
| 10 | S55 | d4 (die not named; a 2) | Investigation check — the dug-up explorer's grave on Varram's trail; 22 + (2) = 24 | — none narrated: "Should I add some Tempered Soul to that bad boy?" | The extra reach found the pattern: the digger ignored the coin and rifled only spaces big enough to hide a mask or a helm |
| 11 | S55 | d4 (die not named; a 2) | Attack roll — longbow vs. a diving Peryton; a natural 1 (12), + (2) = 14 → hit. The ruling was made on this spend: a Tempered Soul spend can overcome a natural 1 | — none narrated; the DM: "If you put your tempered soul on, I'll say that that can overcome a 1." | Miss into hit — 11 damage into the wounded man-hunter |
| 12 | S55 | d6 (rolled a 5) | Damage — the killing arrow on the same peryton, limping for the horizon. In-domain: prey judged deserving — a flight that ate only people | The DM supplied the image: "You force the world around you to obey, and the arrow buries itself even deeper, striking into its heart." | Killed the peryton — "That felt good." |
Shade
| # | Session | Die | Empowered | Feeling & how described (quote) | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S50 | d4 | Attack — Chromatic Orb (fire) vs. the Hydra | Pure confidence: "what I'm feeling is just, like, pure confidence." | Hit (32); 40 fire — killed the Hydra |
| 2 | S50 | d4 | Attack — 3rd-level Chromatic Orb (acid) vs. the Dragon Turtle, "just in case I miss" | Bloodlust + confidence + anger: "…all my new power has been wonderful. And I'm really mad, because I also got some of his steam." | Hit (24); 30 acid |
| 3 | S51 | d4 | Wisdom save (DC 20) — the infernal pulse of 2,400 coins melting in the Host Tower vault | Confidence, and pyromania: "I too am feeling confident that we can do this. And I like fire." | Took 2 psychic (halved) |
| 4 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — the night's camp. 10 + d4(1) = 11 | Restless anticipation: "I'm feeling… anxious for a fight, but, like, in a good way." | A wasted spend — she slept badly anyway |
| 5 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — the Baldur's Gate → Elturel march. 4 + d4(3) = 7 | Weariness: "Ambitious but tired." | Travel still resolved as an easy trip |
| 6 | S52 | d4 (die not named; a 3) | Wisdom save (DC 14) vs. Rook's shadow-arrow — failure = blinded. 13 + (3) = 16 — the 13 would have failed by one | — none narrated by the player; the DM supplied the image: "you use your arcane power and push them aside." (Keyleth: "Be tempered.") | The die was the entire margin. She immediately Hellish Rebuked Rook in return |
| 7 | S54 | d6 (rolled a 5) | Harvest check — the Anathema; 25 + d6(5) = 30, the table's best | Determination: "I'm feeling determined to get this poison." | Signature Venom Glands ×2 and the deepest haul of the carcass |
Gootcha
| # | Session | Die | Empowered | Feeling & how described (quote) | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S50 | d4 | Long-rest Constitution save / Survival check (DC 18) | Longing for rest: "I need rest, and I'm looking forward to sweet dreams." | Not individually resolved on-screen |
| 2 | S50 | d4 | Hex — d4 (rolled 1) applied to the Dragon Turtle's Dexterity saves while hexed (DM ruling: disadvantage −1) | Memory of the slain dragon: "As I'm hexing him, I am thinking of a memory of the dragon… that we just killed." | The turtle failed every Dexterity save for the rest of the fight |
| 3 | S51 | d4 | Sleight of Hand — mid-attempt reroll pickpocketing a Kurth bridge guard (with Baelgrum's Guidance) | Her old self: "I'm feeling my past and how good I used to be at this. Feeling like I got this." | Success — 20 gold (18 red — the discovery that cracked the whole mystery) plus a ring |
| 4 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — day 3 of the Luskan → Neverwinter march | Frustration: "…every other day was so easy. Why is today so hard?" | Day passed uneventfully |
| 5 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — the Baldur's Gate → Elturel march. 18 + d4(2) = 20 | — none narrated | Travel uneventful |
| 6 | S52 | d4 → d6 (retroactive upgrade — the crystallizing spend) | Attack roll — sneak-attack shortbow at Vex; 14 (miss) + d4(3) = 17, then the DM ruled the spend itself crystallized her ember: "I'm gonna treat it like a D6… bump up that extra 2" → 19 | Remembering who she is: "I am… remembering what a badass I am." | Miss into hit — and revealed the ambush's hidden piece: the arrow struck the invisible Rook, popping her invisibility |
| 7 | S54 | d4 (die not named; a 4) | Harvest check — the Anathema; 23 + (4) = 27, second-best of the table (Thieves' → Jeweler's fine work) | — none narrated on-mic | Both pairs of Gemlike Serpent Eyes |
Xanphina
| # | Session | Die | Empowered | Feeling & how described (quote) | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S50 | d4 | Long-rest Constitution save / Survival check (DC 18) | — none narrated: "I'm gonna use mine, too." | Not individually resolved |
| 2 | S50 | d4 | Harvesting roll — Dragon Turtle carcass (d4 = 2) | Rage: "I'm viewing my harvesting with rage, because I'm still raging." | 12 total (result deferred) |
| 3 | S51 | d4 | Strength (Athletics) — tearing the dockmaster's bolted-down coin box off his desk (had already passed with 21; spent it anyway) | Accomplishment: "…we are making progress in helping to right this wrong that we have done to this town." | The bolts sheared and flew across the room |
| 4 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — day 3 of the Luskan → Neverwinter march | Calm: "I'm feeling, um… Zen." | Day passed uneventfully |
| 5 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — the Baldur's Gate → Elturel march. d4(3) | — none narrated | Travel uneventful |
| 6 | S52 | d4 | Save DC — Restraining Ward DC 15 → 17 (d4 = 2) on the caster winding up a Fireball (available "because you are not yet raging") | Anger: "I am feeling angry that he is trying to fireball me." | He rolled exactly 15 — pass vs. 15, fail vs. 17. Restrained mid-cast; the Fireball never went off |
| 7 | S53 | d6 | Wisdom save (DC 15) vs. the necromancer's Bestow Curse (fail = lose her action); rolled low, added the d6 (in-domain — refusing to drop under a force pressing on her) | — none narrated; a grasp at freedom ("Can I use my… whatever, Tempered Soul.") | Failed anyway — "didn't get me there." Lost her action; cast Shield of Faith as a bonus action instead |
| 8 | S54 | d4 (die not named; a 4) | Harvest check — the Anathema; 17 + (4) = 21 | Curiosity: "I'm just really curious about what we're going to get out of this weird snake guy." | Cleared the Very Rare DC — the Mageward Ichor |
| 9 | S55 | d4 (rolled a 1) | Attack roll — heavy crossbow at the last Peryton fleeing at 400 feet, with disadvantage; 10 + (1) = 11, needing 13. The DM ruled her rage-fueled shot was in domain, but her sheet carried only the d4 | — none narrated; woken by talons, throwing everything after the one that got away | Still missed — she ran it down on foot instead, cliff and all, and left it barely flying with a Javelin of Lightning |
Karma
| # | Session | Die | Empowered | Feeling & how described (quote) | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S50 | d4 | Long-rest Constitution save / Survival check (DC 18) | — none narrated: "Might as well use mine." | Not individually resolved |
| 2 | S50 | d4 | Harvesting roll — Dragon Turtle carcass (herbalism kit) | Curiosity: "Pure curiosity and interest. I want to know what we're going to be able to make from this." | 26 ("close") |
| 3 | S51 | d4 | Wisdom save (DC 20) — the infernal pulse of the vault melt she herself triggered | Hardened resolve: "…just hardened resolve and confidence flow through me." | Took 2 psychic (halved) |
| 4 | S52 | d4 | Survival check — the night's camp. 9 + d4(4) = 13 — the best possible roll on the die | Confidence: "I'm feeling confident I'm gonna get an excellent night's sleep." | Lifted a below-average roll to a solid one |
| 5 | S52 | d4 (die rolled a 1) | Save DC — Cone of Cold DC 16 → 17 on four enemies at once (predates the S53 one-creature ruling) | Ferocious confidence: "I'm just feeling so confident, I'm gonna fuck these guys up." | The single point mattered — a 16 that would have saved now failed. "All of them are taking full damage." 36 each |
| 6 | S54 | d6 (rolled a 5) | Harvest check — the Anathema; 12 + d6(5) = 17 | Determination: "I am determined that I'm going to get something good out of here." | Missed Very Rare by three; cleared Rare — the Antivenin Organ |
Carl
Carl carries Tempered Soul too, reforged alongside the company. No spends were recorded at the table before the app; his channels are in the App record below.
Declined or deferred uses
Also part of the record — moments a character weighed the surge and held it:
- Gootcha [1]: a hopeless roll — "even 4 points isn't gonna get me anywhere."
- Keyleth [1]: offered mid-fight, chose the Hellhound Whistle's Erupting Earth instead and saved the surge for the harvest.
- Gootcha [2]: offered a retcon — "Actually, you know what, I'm gonna save it, because we might need to stealth our way into another place." (First deliberate hoarding of the surge.)
- Baelgrum [2]: passed the DC 20 clean — "I guess it doesn't matter. I was gonna say Tempered Soul."
- Keyleth [3]: invited by name to spend toward her ember, and let it pass (a 5 on the die, but +11 Survival).
- Keyleth [3]: an Insight of 11 went un-tempered — she used the mediocre result to pick the most talkative villager and handed the moment to Baelgrum.
- Baelgrum, Gootcha, Xanphina [3]: sat out the night-camp survival check; Baelgrum ate a 7 without flinching, having just confirmed camping resets the feat.
- Karma [3]: the only member not to spend on that check. Her 16 stood on its own.
- Keyleth [4]: held her die when told "it's probably not enough to take them out" — the model hoarding play — then spent the moment the crit made it lethal (spend #8).
- Keyleth [5]: offered the die on her Strength save — "you would need to get, like, a 5 out of it" — and held: "I'll wait, I'll see what I can do next time. Or if you guys kill it." Freed herself next turn with Conjure Animals advantage plus Bless.
- Karma [5]: held her spend in combat and banked it for the harvest.
- Baelgrum [6]: readied his die for the religion check on the gnolls — "I'm going to use my four" — and the DM waved it off: he would know the answer before spending. The 15 stood un-tempered.
Tally (table spends, S50–S55)
Feat uses only (the S50 return strikes are logged in the Prelude and not counted). Ember spends are the growth metric. Where the table never named the die, it is counted as the d4. Spends made through the app are in the App record and on the tracker pages.
| Character | d4 spends | d6 spends | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baelgrum | 8 | 4 | 12 |
| Keyleth | 9 | 3 | 12 |
| Xanphina | 8 | 1 | 9 |
| Shade | 6 | 1 | 7 |
| Gootcha | 6 | 1 | 7 |
| Karma | 5 | 1 | 6 |
| Carl | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 42 | 11 | 53 |
Reading the tally: Baelgrum leads on d6 spends — three Command save-DCs and a Scrying, every one in service of the people or the quest in his care. Keyleth has pulled level with him in total spends, and her d6 keeps firing where her embers live: the kill and the harvest of deserving prey. Name your die when you spend — an unnamed die is logged as the d4, and only ember and flare spends grow the soul.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Session 50.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Session 51 — stables heist.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Session 52 — day-2 survival.
- ↑ Session 53 — the wyrmling.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Session 54 — the anathema's Entangle.
- ↑ Session 55 — the gnolls.
App record
Appended automatically by the hex-crawl app's Soul panel, one line per channel: game date, character, ember or flare, Peak, die, result, and what rose in them. Keep this the last section of the page.
- Hammer 17, 1489 DR, 1:00 PM — Carl: Binding (Weave), failed
- Hammer 17, 1489 DR, 1:00 PM — Carl: Closure (Weave), failed
- Hammer 17, 1489 DR, 1:00 PM — Carl: Inscription (Weave), failed
- Hammer 17, 1489 DR, 1:00 PM — Carl: Closure (Weave), failed
- Hammer 17, 1489 DR, 1:00 PM — Carl: Binding (Weave), failed
- Hammer 17, 1489 DR, 1:00 PM — Carl: Linkage (Weave, d6), failed