The Black Tome

Flynry

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11 min read

First appearance: S2 Ep1, Fate of the Arbiter (Fate of the Arbiter Part 1) · watch it on YouTube

Flynry is a big, bearded shifter monk who spent his whole life on the road and never once had a home. With Toddleheim and Locket he hunted the Arbiter through Fate of the Arbiter and helped unmask him before the Grandmaster. He then gave his life for her in the Battle for the Crown. His story did not end there. His soul woke in a desert afterlife, and his long, strange walk through it became the spine of Into the Mirror, a story about a man who wanted nothing more than somewhere to belong.

Story

Fate of the Arbiter

Flynry first appeared in S2 Ep1, Fate of the Arbiter (Fate of the Arbiter Part 1). He was a shifter who could not return to his homeland, carrying a short bow and a bracelet his aunt had made. His mum had told him to find a nice lady. He introduced himself simply: “I like to punch things.” He was a hustler from the start. He won 7 gold off the goblin Kenny by claiming a contagious “condition” he did not have, and he pocketed 8 gold, 4 silver and 3 copper on his way through the fortress.

From the Box of Chaos he drew a scroll that hardened his skin like a dragon’s. He told no one and used it on himself. In the fight that followed, Flynry landed the crushing blow that bloodied the Arbiter and tore off his hands. The victory was a lie. The “Arbiter” they had beaten was only a visage, and the real one framed the party as traitors and threw them into the arena.

In S2E6 — FoTA - Sands of the Arena (Fate of the Arbiter, Part 2), he called himself a “humble traveler” who had left his old life to see the world, and said, “I’ve not got another name.” He gave up a bracelet from his home world to the Box. It was the same bracelet he had once nearly lost gambling and won back with his “condition” trick. In return he got a breastplate that guarded against necrotic harm and fit his beast form, a form he loved so much that he wished everyone kept theirs. He was plainly smitten with Locket’s feral shape. The champions refused to fight each other, beat back the Arbiter’s monsters with Flynry’s fists burning blue, and escaped with Lyrus. Along the way Flynry saved Toddleheim on the tiles. The Seer gave him the Atlas of Endless Horizons, a compass-rose necklace, and Flynry repaid him by teasing him about being blind.

The trip reached the Grandmaster in S2E17 — Fate of the Arbiter - The Hall of Fates — Toddleheim, Locket and Flynry reach the Grandmaster. Before setting out, Flynry went shopping. He bought studded gauntlets for himself, a mood bracelet for Kenny and a giant spoon for Frank the chef. Then came the hall of mirrors, which went straight for his deepest wound. Flynry had never had a home, and the mirrors showed him being celebrated, belonging, and finally sitting at a family feast with his grandchildren. A mirror caught him in its tether, and Toddleheim and Locket had to pull him free. The party then beat a sludge elemental, reached the Grandmaster and exposed the Arbiter. That led to the tournament for the title of Grandmaster.

Battle for the Crown

In S2E20 — Battle for the Crown Round 3 — Flynry & Prof. Stabbz v Thornabub & Mcswiggins, Flynry fought for Team Grandmaster beside Prof. Stabbz, against Thornabub and Mcswiggins. By then he had become something of a poet, writing verses about his journey with Locket and Toddleheim on the Grandmaster’s behalf while they pursued the Arbiter. He mentioned a visit to the temple at The Eastern Outpost with Orin. He also claimed to hear the ancestral cries of an angry Scottish wizard who protected ducks. Before the fight he flicked a small golden coin to the Grandmaster.

The match was not dignified. A tome sharpened his mind and quickened his hands, and then his tongue got stuck to Mcswiggins’s beer tomb. The end came in a storm of meteors. As Flynry died, Orin’s spirit embraced him, and he said one word: “Home.” Thornabub was left as the last one standing. The Acolytes still voted for Flynry and Prof. Stabbz, and the Grandmaster won the Battle for the Crown 4–2 and kept her crown. Afterwards Flynry’s ghost stood in robes beside her chair.

Into the Mirror

Into the Mirror, Session 1 picked up with the meteor that killed him. Flynry woke in a desert carrying memories of a life he never lived. In that dream he had won the Battle for the Crown with Prof. Stabbz and retired from the Grandmaster’s service, honored with a place at her court. He had a wife named Lillian, a son named Orin and a home in a village. In the real desert he pulled a greatsword wreathed in blue flame out of the sand. It cooled to a mirror finish with “truth” inscribed in gold, and it guided his wandering. By his own reckoning he walked The Sands of Eternity for years, maybe decades, before his friends arrived, and in that wild place he sometimes shifted too far into something more animal.

By Into the Mirror 7–9, the years had changed him. He was grayer, his stature had changed, his big beard was gone, and even his voice was different. He wore a rich black cloak and armor “of the sand.” Only in his sword’s reflection could he still see the old Flynry, long-haired and beastish in a velvet cloak. The brawler now fought with a new acrobatic grace. His blade, Truth, burned aqua and turned sand creatures to glass. He had struggled with “a certain form of psychosis,” and because his origins here were “based on lies,” he doubted the reunion was real. He told his friends he had been “engulfed in flame and death” to get there. The party destroyed the sand scorpions and their giant, and then Locket was killed.

Grief cut deep. In Into the Mirror 10 Shatter + Into the Mirror 11 Mortaurios, he partly shifted in mourning and blamed Cerys for Locket’s death. He named Toddleheim “his best friend, number one.” He kept a soul gem fragment from the first sand minotaur he had killed, and he could sometimes bend the sand, though never on purpose. The party fought off four desert outlanders on the way to Mortaurios. In Into the Mirror Session 4, after perhaps a century in the waste, he ate for the first time in ages and found he could still taste. He wore Elianna’s glass remembrance stone on a leather strap around his neck. In the snowy mirror realm his sand powers failed him and his sword lost its guiding pull, but he fought on with blade and fists. He even cast an illusion of Kenny as the party brought down an ice dragon.

In Into the Mirror 14 — The Scholar, his sword’s flames answered the orrery, and Flynry trusted it. He stayed wary of touching arcane things, reasoning, “We all know what the king looked like.” He was newly impressed by Cerys in battle. He also woke the young Arbiter from his trance with a touch on the shoulder. The meeting soured in Into the Mirror 15–16, Old Friends - Sky. Flynry had known the Arbiter longer than the others, and he blamed him for killing his friends, for betraying everything he knew and for “my loss.” The Arbiter’s answers were that he “didn’t kill” him, a mention of “the meteor,” and a comment on Flynry’s new hairstyle. The sword of Truth showed Vythorn his true, full-powered self. Flynry swore a blood oath to Cerys that he would protect the party. He was knocked down by an orc in the fight with Sky’s raiders and healed back up.

In Into the Mirror 17, The Way Out, the party survived Sky’s ambush only by surrendering, and Flynry paid her toll with his shortbow. He turned his sword’s revealing reflection on Sky. He drew on what he had read in “the large book” about a Golden Lady statue and an eye-shaped pendant with a red gem. He traded the Atlas of Endless Horizons for a periapt that closes wounds. Back on his old monk footing, he helped hold off the guardians of The Oasis and took a giant’s rock meant for Toddleheim. Vythorn escaped alone through the orrery. Flynry, who wanted only to return to “the living,” was still in the Sands.

Personality and Abilities

Flynry started out hulking: six foot two, 250 pounds, long brown hair, a big beard and a red cloak. Years in the Sands left him grayer, beardless, cloaked in black and armored in sand. He is strong, showy and a little prickly, but he insists he is no center-of-attention type. He can’t dance and has never been to a party, and he calls himself “not the leader of anything besides maybe lunch.” Underneath the swagger is one longing, a home, and it runs through every chapter of his story, from the mirrors’ family feast to his last word in the arena.

He fought first as a weaponless pugilist, all flurrying fists, rushing footwork and arrow-swatting gauntlets. Later his fists burned with blue fire. He could slip through shadows, wrap himself in silence and darkness, and wither foes with a necrotic touch. His “condition” is real: he shifts into a beast form, anything from one clawed arm to a full transformation, and he shrugs off poison and disease. In the Sands he took up Truth, a mirror-bladed greatsword that burns aqua or cerulean, shows a person’s true self or urges, and once guided his steps. He carries it in a back sheath with a cup for the point. Even so, he always ends up back on his fists.

Relationships

  • Toddleheim: Companion since Fate of the Arbiter and “his best friend, number one.” He freed Flynry from the mirrors, and Flynry later took a giant’s rock for him.
  • Locket: Fellow traveler and the subject of his poetry. Flynry was smitten with her feral form, and her death in the Sands left him shifting in grief.
  • The Arbiter: The enemy he hunted, framed by and ultimately blamed for “my loss.” In the Sands he woke the young Vythorn and showed him his true self.
  • The Grandmaster: The ruler he exposed the Arbiter to and died fighting for. His ghost stood beside her chair.
  • Orin: Visited the Eastern Outpost temple with him, and Orin’s spirit embraced Flynry as he died.
  • Cerys: He blamed her for Locket’s death and distrusted her, then grew impressed by her and swore her a blood oath to protect the party.
  • Kenny: A goblin he swindled at gambling on his first day and later bought a mood bracelet for.
  • Frank: The chef he bought a giant wooden spoon for.

Memorable Quotes

Appearances

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