Session 178 - A Song of Ice and Fire

Congratulations to Carter who has experienced his first character death! A tragic rune accident claimed the noble sailor-cleric. Alas.

Also, Team POWERVESSEL's first loss at the races! Beaten by newcomers the Fragmentalists no less, what an upset!

POWERLAD is kicked off a boat

Galaxy Johnson's fiancee bites the shaft.

Sir Robyn's kids grow up.
Meric chills out.

- Charles wins memes​

Session 178 - A Song of Ice and Fire

Campaign Date:

Monday, 8 March, 1601

Moon Phase: Third Quarter

Zodiac: Aquarius

New Backstory:
- Meric was forced to murder a sailor who had gone mad and was steering their ship towards the shoals. The sailor didn't listen to reason, so Meric lashed a cannonball to the guy's leg and kicked it overboard. If he knew what Meric knew, he'd know it had to be done. (+1 Backstab)

Enemies Defeated:

- A boatful of blank-faced clay demons (150 exp)

Total: 150 exp

Treasure and Equipment:

- Sadly not much

Total: 0 exp

Exploration:

- 1 Random Encounter (50 exp)

Total: 50 exp

Events:

- The morning opens to a remarkably calm day on the magma moat. It's a lovely day for a spot of crystal boating. I sure hope this isn't some sort of calm before the storm situation. (50 exp)
- Shady Dave and Elena are introduced to each other for the first time. As of next month Honey Healing and Blood Honey 4 U will be united under the Blood Honey Healing For You conglomerate, and their fortunes will influence each other! Hurrah for diversification! (50 exp)

- Galaxy Johnson comes back into consciousness in Arach-Nacha's web-filled room. He gently nudges "Andromeda" awake. Her eyes open and she looks at him in horror, screaming in confusion before her pupils split four ways and she relaxes into Arach-Nacha's voice. (50 exp)
- This is normal. Galaxy Johnson has similar experiences with Coalminer Dan. This is totally fine. (50 exp)
- He asks her if he's going to give birth to more spider babies soon (no) and whether she'd be willing to bite a tentacle to see what happens (of course!). He asks her age and she evades, mildly hurt. (50 exp)

- With no particularly pressing issues, it looks like today's going to be a day for everyone to sort of do their own thing.
--- Meric learns much

- Meric hunts for a book on "the Deluvial Dragon", following a lead from Galaxy Johnson who's pretty sure that's what the Light Dragon is called. (50 exp)
- After some time searching through the stacks with Bertha's librarian help, they find something. Atrahasis, Deluvial Dragon. Exactly what they were looking for! (50 exp)
- He reads it and discovers a few things, somewhat confusing. The seat of the dragon's power, presumably where it is right now, is in the Arctic. Can the Light Dragon's power be bound at a distance? Irrelevant. Something about that question means it can't be answered by this book. (50 exp)
- He also carves many intricate runes into the heads of large nails, making sure to start charging a Take-Cold-Cold glyph that begins drawing ambient cold into it from the surrounding air. What could go wrong? (50 exp)
--- Sir Robyn looks after his shitty kids
- Sir Robyn spends the day with his spider children. They're going through spider puberty and they're fascinated with bad boy drug dealer Shady Dave who they think is just the coolest, even though Sir Robyn knows he's a total waster. Kids amirite. (50 exp)
- On the plus side, his swarm of adopted adolescents has grown up enough to officially become a swarm of spider Extras. Yay! (50 exp)
--- The great poison experiment
- Everyone else heads off to the Biohazard Zone to let "Andromeda" sink her teeth into a tentacle. Considering Andromeda and POWERLAD have dragon wings now, this is a remarkably easy feat. (50 exp)
- As they swoop over the rooftops, POWERLAD looks down to see a bunch of fans waving at him! Requests for autographs can be heard over the roaring wind. (50 exp)
- You've got to be good to the fans, right? POWERLAD and co swoop down. He signs memorabilia, woodcuts, and erotic novellas. but overhears people muttering who are perturbed at the sight of this great hero in the company of a filthy ratman, a black dragon cultist, and a creepy elf. (50 exp)
- This cannot do! POWERLAD makes a rousing speech about accepting differences and helping others in this time of great need. Yes, even ratmen! (50 exp)
- The crowd suitably assuaged and admonished, the group fly off again to rousing cheers and applause! (50 exp)
- The first major tendril they see is surrounded by some familiar jerky-smokers, carving off greyish cancerous scabby lumps off the great swaying limb like they're carving kebab meat off the doner. It's not a sight for the squeamish. The tentacle writhes painfully as they work. (50 exp)

- Galaxy Johnson and Arach-Nacha head for another tentacle that's burst from the flagstones down a side street. (50 exp)
- As she approaches, Andromeda's body distorts and ripples, bending over backwards as her legs atrophy and her belly bloats into a grotesque abdomen. There is a faint sound of a woman begging and pleading and screaming, as if from the end of a long tunnel. Her ribs crack apart and form into eight long legs, her mouth is open in a grimace of pain as glossy black carapace rips apart soft skin, her chin erupting with boils that form into eight eyes and her mouth is forced too too far open as mandibles force their way from her fragile jaw. (50 exp)

-  Arach-Nacha is here in her true form! Yay! Galaxy Johnson smiles up at the huge arachnid body of his beautiful bride-to-be. (50 exp)
- She bites the writhing tentacle with her glistening fangs, and immediately pulsing blackness spreads across its turgid flesh. The blackness spreads an the tentacle withers and desiccates and dies, petering out at the thicker base of the limb. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD now sees what Isen Heisenberg was on about with delivery mechanisms. Good to know! (50 exp)
- With the boat race coming up in the early afternoon, it's time to make some easy money! To the boats! (50 exp)
--- An unpleasant day for boating
- Team POWERVESSEL gets ready to race. Meric takes up his usual steersman position, Sir Robyn bangs the drums, and since they're low on manpower today POWERLAD recruits his biggest fan "DRAGONO" to be an extra rower. (50 exp)
- Facing them today are the Fragmentalists, Mob Rule, Holy Drivers, and the Sin Eaters. That's crystal drakencult, an anthill mob-style multistorey boat containing a confusingly large number of people, a bunch of praying Denialists, and a boatful of clay-skinned demons with blank faces. (50 exp)
- Place your bets! Most put a bunch of money on their own success. Confidence is key! (50 exp)
- The usual ritual occurs. Spells are pulled from heads by the hands of Japhet and Hirsch. Coalminer Dan is back! He finds himself chained to an oar. Sir Robyn is telling him that Old Man Henderson is dead and reads the will. Dan doesn't have much time to process, the race is on! (50 exp)
- Almost immediately the still surface of the lava roils into huge boils of magma, exploding and showering the unwary with superheated chunks of liquid stone! (50 exp)
- It's too much for Team POWERVESSEL. They have to spend most of their rowing just avoiding exploding magma blobs, Ratimir manages to bravely punt ahead. 
- The other boats are faring far worse, limping into the second leg and expending much effort just staying afloat. The only team to get ahead are the Sin Eaters who feast on other's misfortune to plow ahead, neck and neck with Team POWERVESSEL (50 exp)- Ahead, slightly better conditions. Gigantic black blocks of basalt float on the magma sea, clashing together and creating quick-moving rapids between them as they surge apart. Team POWERVESSEL and Team Sin Eaters are rushing into a breach, crystal boats ringing together, neck and neck. (50 exp)
- As both teams approach, Team POWERLAD hits the edge of one of the magma bubbles, scattering off and enduring a searing burst of heat. Sir Robyn's luck runs out, barely avoiding worse consequences and hitting exactly 0HP. (50 exp)
- In Meric's pocket, unbeknownst to the rest of his team, the cold-sucking glyph he made in the library has been diligently absorbing a day's worth of elemental cold from the surroundings. His concentration breaks. The glyph releases all the pent-up cold and.... (50 exp)
--- Record scratch, freeze frame

- We make sense of this fucking insane scene, looking up how long a 6 man boat is while furiously debating thermodynamics. (50 exp)
- The long crystal boats of POWERVESSEL and the Sin Eaters are neck and neck, surging down a flume of magma between the big black basalt blocks. There is a sustained shimmering sound of crystal harmonies as the boats grind against into each other the black rock walls. Shinnnnggg. (50 exp)

- The faceless clay demons are paddling hard, partially-formed muscles straining at the oars. The drummer is concentrating hard, one drumstick in the air, the other bouncing from the manskin drum. Bakooooom. (50 exp)
- Meric, at the back of his boat, has a look of shock on his face. Blossoming out, centred on his pocket, is a sphere of cold rippling air. His clothes and skin are turning white, slowly slowly expanding out across his body, riming him with frost. Shaaaaahhhh. (50 exp)
- The rowers of team POWERVESSEL, facing the rear as they are, have a front row seat to everything that's about to happen. Aaaaaaaaa! (50 exp)

- In a split-second, Meric is instantly frozen solid. (50 exp)
- Microseconds later, an orb of extreme cold forms around Meric's frozen corpse. The air turns white and then immediately to steam, the nearby magma freezes to solid stone, cracks ripple through the crystalline hull. (50 exp)
- There is a sudden incredible rush of wind as the burning air blasts in to fill the sphere of sudden cold. (50 exp)
- Dragono, in the wrong place at the wrong time, is sucked towards Meric by the polar implosion. (50 exp)
- The air collapses exactly onto Meric at the epicentre. Snap frozen, the impact of superheated air hits him dead-on and shatters him into a thousand thousand pieces. (50 exp)
- The cracked crystal of the back half of the boat shatters, collapsing into sharp crystal fragments. (50 exp)
- Dragono has no chance. The flash-frozen ice shards practically vapourise him. Two of the demons, neck and neck in the rival boat, are annihilated by the blast. At least Dragono died protecting his heroes, spattering them with chunks of meat instead of deadly chunks of sharp ice and crystal. Bits of corpse rain down, sizzling and popping in the magma and burning onto the hot black basalt. (50 exp)
- Sir Robyn, Ratimir, POWERLAD and Coalminer Dan suddenly find themselves in half a boat, having just witnessed the death of a companion, attached by frozen rock to an enemy vessel full of extremely shocked demons. (50 exp)
--- Fight for Survival!
- The survivors immediately grasp the only way they'll manage to survive and maybe even win this race. Piracy! The boats are briefly bound by frozen rock, there's no time to lose! (50 exp)
- POWERLAD leaps forth with a wing-boosted jump straight at the demon drummer, but fails! The demon kicks him over the magma, but he juuuust manages to survive by flaring his huge wings. (50 exp)
-Ratimir's swarms begin pouring towards the demon boat and Coalminer Dan chucks a vial of holy water. It misses, but the demons get the idea! Sir Robyn offers clemency to the first two demons to defect to Team POWERVESSEL. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD immediately sees a defector in the group, who pushes his teammate into the lava! Scared, one of the others follows his lead! The clay bodies of the dead are immediately baked black, curling streamers of darkness flow out of their heads and dart in the direction of the Black Sun. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD rock-glues team POWERVESSEL's figurehead to the prow and the race is on once more! (50 exp)
- In the next leg, bobbing pumice rocks are connected by long sizzling strands of ivy. Powering their way through the sweet-smelling haze, spiders made of vines descend towards the beleaguered boat! (50 exp)
- Ratimir sends his rats swarming up the vines to head them off! The distraction is enough. The rats that get close enough fall asleep, plopping into the lava with loud pops as their organs cook off and explode. (50 exp)
- As they come into the last leg, team POWERVESSEL is still in last place, but they push forward with great strength! They steam ahead of the floundering Holy Drivers and edge past Mob Rule, coming up right on the tail of the Fragmentalists! (50 exp)
- But alas, though they raced well, the Fragmentalists win by a nose! Applause applause! A lot of bookies made a lot of money today, POWERVESSEL was meant to be a shoe-in for the win! (50 exp)
--- Second Place
- The masked demons in the victory pagoda lavish the winners with booze and riches. No sacrifice today, since one of the teams died during the race! Hurrah! (50 exp)
- The red-masked demon hurls mocking abuse at the blackened and exhausted members of Team POWERVESSEL. I thought you were the best! (50 exp)
- The Fracted Drakencult use their moment in the public eye to yell about the injustice and stupidity of this boat race. Have you people no shame?! These are literal demons! They aren't running this race out of the goodness of their hearts! (50 exp)
- The blank-faced clay demons who helped Team POWERVESSEL to the finish line are recruited as proper members of the boat team. They're happy to join, considering they're the only ones left alive from their original crew. (50 exp)
- Interrogated on how they got here, they don't know all that much. They were invited to the city by the Flower Liches who run the race, especially since everything else seems to be fucked at the moment and there don't seem to be any of those horrible angels in this town. (50 exp)
- The two-headed demon(s) Japhet and Hirsch offer the team an invitation to dinner at their place. They have much to discuss, apparently. They live in the formerly abandoned North Tower in the undead area. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD asks the Fragmentalists if they can net him an audience with their priestess Christina Breaker. They're very interested in the idea, since there's currently that internecine strife in the ranks of the drakencult and all. They agree on a date and time to meet up! (50 exp)
- Having witnessed the near-death of both their adoptive and real fathers, Sir Robyn's spider kids decide to join their dads as a swarm of poisonous spider Extras! Hurrah! (50 exp)
Total: 3300 exp

Misc:

- Absolutely Disgusting bonus (50 exp)

- Balls to the Wall bonus (50 exp)

- Best of Intentions bonus (50 exp)

- Bookworm bonus (50 exp)

- Brutal Kill bonus (50 exp)

- Classic Charles bonus (50 exp)

- Dramatic Chase bonus (50 exp)

- Dramatic Escape bonus (50 exp)

- Gambling Problem bonus (50 exp)

- Henchman Abuse bonus (50 exp)

- I Immediately Regret This Decision bonus (50 exp)

- Long Deliberation bonus (50 exp)

- Ludicrous Gore bonus (50 exp)

- Michael Bay bonus (50 exp)

- Poison is OP bonus (50 exp)

- Pundemonium bonus (50 exp)

- Ridiculously Bad Rolling bonus (50 exp)

- Tentacle Molestation bonus (50 exp)

- What Could Possibly Go Wrong bonus (50 exp)

Total: 950 exp

Party Roles and Individual Exp:

- MVP bonus (Meric - players*100 exp to successor)
- Remembrancer (Carter / Next Character - 100 exp)

- Caller (Kitty / POWERLAD - 100 exp)
- Treasurer (Charles / Galaxy Johnson - 100 exp)

- Guard (Kitty / POWERLAD - 100 exp)
- Tracker (Timothy / Sir Robyn - 100 exp)
- Art Attack bonus (Carter, Timothy, Charles - 100 exp ea.)

- Attacco d'Arte bonus (Timothy, Charles - 100 exp)
- Chippo Lady bonus (Kitty*2 - 100 exp ea.)
- Hummous Hero bonus (Carter, Timothy - 100 exp)
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Charles, Timothy, James - 500 exp ea,)
- Near Death Experience bonus (POWERLAD, Sir Robyn - 100 exp)
- An Hero bonus (Meric - 200 exp to next character)
- Amusing Death bonus (Meric - 500 exp to next character)
- Awesome Death bonus (Meric - 500 exp to next character)
- Death's Witness bonus (Everyone else - 100 exp ea.)

Active Businesses:

- Honey Healing. Safe. 1084sp. (Bertha)  -1%

- Knickers Gloves Bodices. Risky. 1020sp. (Ratimir)  +1%,  -2%
- Blood Honey 4 U. Safe. 10410sp. (Sir Robyn)  -2%

Rumours:

- 

Death Toll and Injuries:

- Meric, snap-frozen and shattered into a thousand thousand pieces in a tragic rune accident
- Dragono, whoever that guy was, blasted by a thousand thousand shards of Meric.

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / POWERLAD!, Level 7 Muscle Wizard: 92042 (Level up at 144000)-- Devotee of Ninhursag, Bond 9 (-45% exp)
- James / Ratimir, Level 6 Ratman: 24434 (Level up at 48000)*DING!* +1d6 HP! Rat Max 36! +backstory!   
- Charles / Galaxy Johnson, Level 5 Elf (Alpdrucke): 46645 (Level up at 48000)
- Timothy / Sir Robyn, Level 5 Magic-User: 34304 (Level up at 36000)

--- Spider Squad, Level 1 Spider Extras: 405 (Level up at 1500)
- Carter / Meric, Level 3 Nonanist Cleric *DECEASED*
- Carter / Carter's Necromancer, Level 2 Necromancer: 2710 (Level up at 4500)
*DING!* +1d4 HP! +1 level 1 spell/day! +free spell! +backstory!

Absent or Retired:

- Tom / Clarence Eclair, Level 3 Specialist: 3040 (Level up at 6000)

- Tom / Aces Fontaine, Level 1 Specialist: 869 (Level up at 1500)
- Kitty / Bertha, Level 4 Necromancer: 9931 (Level up at 18000)- Imran / Friar, Level 1 Magic User: 1040 (Level up at 2250)
- Yuri / Bjorn Gunnerson, Level 2 Barbarian: 2278 (Level up at 4000)

- Sunni / Larry's Legends, Level 1 Extras: 758 (Level up at 1500)

- Fraser / Tippin, Level 1 Ratman: 1458 (Level up at 1500)

- Charles / Zena, Level 6 Fighter: 41566 (Level up at 64000)

- Tom / Meteor Power Shower, Level 2 Barbarian: 3061 (Level up at 4000)

- Nix's Retainer

--- Huz, Level 0 Hireling

- Tom / Spicy Mac, Level 2 Halfling: 3457 (Level up at 4000)

- Eleanor / Mugg, Level 2 Fighter: 2357 (Level up at 4000)

- Kyle / Gimlass the Brave, Level 2 Dwarf: 2257 (Level up at 4400)

- Amar / Amar's Cleric, Level 1 Cleric: 1413 (Level up at 1750)

- Henry / Henry's Next Character: +2084 exp

- Ollie / Tremendo Picante, Level 2 Ratman: 2654 (Level up at 3000)

- James / Raaf van Held, Level 4 Fighter: 14838 (Level up at 16000)

- Eglė / Bob, Level 1 Dwarf: 434 (Level up at 2200)

- Will / Cecil Fulbright, Level 5 Cleric (Termaxian): 15063 (Level up at 28000)

- James / William Fox-Shitt, Level 3 Cleric (Zeanist): 4571 (Level up at 7000)