Web Video / Otikata's Curse

From left to right: Lucine Lavendel, Nia Ebonheart, Mei, Tomoe, and River Styx

Otikata's Curse is an Actual Play web video series, in which members of VShojo and other associated Virtual Youtubers play in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign run by Arcadum. The campaign is set in The Living World of Verum.

The Path of Prosperity is a central road that cuts its way though the center and heart of Glies. This eastern monolith of trade and information stretches thousands of miles. At its head... that lies furthest to its west, just to its south there lies the great city of Bal'Lok, otherwise known as the City of Bells, whose constant music and grandiose structure can be seen from miles around. However, as these grand machinations of fate twist and turn in unseen ways, our story begins just outside of Bal'Lok, in a small tertiary village called Chimeveld.

Session 0 of Otikata's Curse was streamed on April 7, 2021, while the campaign officially began on June 18, 2021; a playlist of the campaign itself can be found here.

The final episode was streamed on August 20, 2021; after information came out on August 31, 2021 detailing a long history of Arcadum's off-stream behavior, in particular being harassing, manipulative, and abusive, especially towards female players, all of the players dropped from the campaign and severed all ties to Arcadum.

Related to Otikata's Curse is a special one-shot session entitled "The Spirit Dance", which can be viewed here. Careful though, the entire premise involves significant spoilers for events in the campaign.

Cast

• Arcadum as the Dungeon Master
• Froot as Mei, Whitewood Elf Rogue
• Haruka Karibu as River Styx, Geckoi Fighter
• Nyatasha Nyanners as Lucine Lavendel, Tearn Warlock
• Snuffy as Tomoe, Ho'Ask Sorceror
• Veibae as Nia Ebonheart, Tabaxi/Human Druid

Character-specific information can be found here.

Otikata's Curse provides examples of:

• A Crack in the Ice: The battle against the Mistwalker Gorger took place atop a frozen lake, and they use this to drop it in at one point.
• A Day in the Limelight: The special session "The Spirit Dance" focuses entirely on River after dying to the Mistwalker, in which she enters the Hall of Heroes, and enters into a duel to fight for the right to return to life, ultimately succeeding after a hard-fought battle.
• Attack of the Town Festival: The campaign starts in a town festival held in Chimevald, and the curse is unleashed on it the very next morning.
• Big Bad: Naturally, Otikata.
• Breather Episode: Between Episode 5, a harrowing battle against the Mistwalker Gorger, and episode 7, which featured considerable exposition and backstory reveals, Episode 6 consisted mainly of travelling to and exploring an abandoned temple.
• Buried in a Pile of Corpses: Sort of. When the party is caught in the Mists while in a graveyard, they hide out in a mausoleum as they wait for the accompanying creatures to leave.
• The Cameo: Being in Verum, some characters from other campaigns were bound to come up at some point.
  • "The Spirit Dance" has appearances by Zara and Madd Morc.
  • Episode 7 has the party meeting with Moe Kowbull and Derok Dranf.
• Chekhov's Gun: The flower that Dexin Volnarus^note the red-haired man who took part in the festival's dance competition gave to Nia turned out to be the same flower that Naus Gaki needed to create a treatment for the curse.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Once the party establishes the Inquisitor's Temple as a base of operations, the NPCs Bomba, Captain Chei, Jilly, and Kyse, who the party befriended at the start of the campaign and rescued from Chimeveld, turn out to be capable of providing a variety of services to the party between quests.
• The Corruption: The titular curse is effectively this to the party, with the effects on them growing worse as its hold on them increases.
• Cut Short: Following revelations about Arcadum that, among many other things, left the players unwilling to continue playing with him, the campaign ended after episode 8.
• Eye Scream: Mei's first attack against the Mistwalker Gorger was specifically directed at one of its many eyes, as well as Nia's attack that finally finishes it.
• Failed a Spot Check: When the party goes through the list of reagents they need to retrieve during their first mission, they notice white birch bark, and get the idea to use Mei's branches for the job, even though they were at that moment surrounded by wood matching the description of what they needed. Ironically, the situation is resolved by inverting the trope, when Nia gets a successful Perception check that results in Arcadum pointing this out.
• From Bad to Worse: The party's first encounter with the titular curse is pretty much this. They come across a lone murder victim, and by the time they bring this to the attention of some nearby guards, several other lethal attacks are already happening. Then afflicted townsfolk appear to attack the party directly, and by the time Lucine takes to the sky, she finds that the the entire town has gone to hell.
• Funny Background Event: During River's introduction, when Bomba takes her to where she has set up shop, the two pass by Mei and Kyse's stands, and the argument between the two briefly fades in, then back out as they walk by.
• Godzilla Threshold: When the fight with the Mistwalker Gorger really starts going south, the party starts using cursed actions in order to finish it off quickly.
• Hate Plague: Otikata's Curse has thus far been shown to take this form, amplifying even the pettiest of grievances to send victims into a vicious frenzy in which they'll attack pretty much anyone within reach.
• Home Base: The Inquisitor's Temple that Naus Gaki takes the party to after escaping Chimeveld serves as one for the party.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Tomoe undergoes one in order to confront The Grey One that has possessed him for much of his life and is the source of his magic.
• Nightmare Sequence:
  • The party has a shared one in the first night, during which they see Chimeveld with all of its residents dead, save for a few that instead undergo severe Body Horror, and then see Otikata taking up the entire sky, looking down on them. This doesn't ultimately happen, but what actually does happen to Chimeveld isn't a whole lot better.
  • A part of Otikata's curse is that the characters will occasionally have horrible nightmares, accompanied by a Wisdom saving throw. The nightmares will increase in frequency as the curse grows, and the consequences for failing the save will grow worse.
• Noodle Incident:
  • At one point before the campaign, Mei attempted to assassinate River, but failed. Details on what happened or how it came to happen have been sparse thus far.
  • Lune mentioned one incident in which Nia totaled a horse to make clear to the rest of the party that she Drives Like Crazy.
  • Apparently, at a period of time in Nia and Lune's history, Lune posed as a priest as part of a scam to perform fake weddings, baptisms, and the like.
• The Power of Hate: Otikata himself is stated to pretty much run on this.
  Naus Gaki: Those scholars and historians would believe that love is the most powerful force, and they are all of them fools.
  • Thanks to being afflicted with the curse, yet also able to resist it, the party is capable of harnessing this themselves. By taking a Cursed Action, any of them can gain an extra turn at any time in combat, at the cost of worsening the effects of the curse on themselves.
• Running Gag:
  • "Casual Racism", which initially started as something Kyse would accuse Mei of whenever she used any of his Bird People features to mock him, and would later be brought up in response to pretty much any action or statement that could be interpreted as Fantastic Racism. This is sometimes added to by bringing up the potential existence of "Hardcore/Competitive Racism".
  • Haruka's often abysmal luck with rolls.
  • "Rhombus Mode" used to describe Lucine taking flight, due to how Arcadum adjusts character tokens to show that they are of a different elevation than the rest of the battlefield.
• Tastes Like Chicken: In the "The Spirit Dance" one-shot, Madd Morc and Zara briefly discuss this trope when wondering whether lizard tastes like chicken, or if it's actually the other way around.
  Madd Morc: Woah, I didn't know it would get so deep out here.
• You All Meet in an Inn: While the campaign starts with each player character entering Chimeveld individually and going about their business either on their own or in smaller groups for some time, the local tavern is where the entire party ends up together for the first time.
• Your Days Are Numbered: The entire party, due to being afflicted with the titular curse. Their first task as a party is to gather reagents for a treatment to buy them time.