Session 209 - The Belly of the Beast

It's a Christmas miracle, I sent this before lunch! Since I'm rushing a bit, as usual, send me your changes and alterations to the things I got wrong!

An assault on the drakencult base ends in near-disaster, Styx fights for his licensing fees,

Christmas Special delayed to after Christmas... partially because Carter's not here and partially because I haven't had a chance to prep anything!

Here goes, see you tonight for the LAST D&D OF THE YEAR!

Session 209 - The Belly of the Beast

Campaign Date:

Wednesday 10th June, 1601

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent

Zenith: Dispater

Zodiac: Taurus

New Characters:
- Señor Romantico, an elderly Berber Barber Barbarian on the hunt for the people who stole his identity,

New Backstory:
- Señor Romantico’s mistress died too young in a great battle, and he’s always cursed the one who took her from him. (Double damage against enemies that killed a PC this session)

Treasure and Equipment:

-

Total: 0 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- A mob of Banjo Fishwicks (600 exp)
- A gang of William Fox-Shitts (1000 exp) - A squad of mixed Ereshkigal Drakencultists (1000 exp)- A nascent Elemental Dragon (500 exp)

Total: 3100 exp

Exploration:

- First party to enter the Orthoplex Crater of the Black Drakencult (1000 exp)

Total: 1000 exp

Events:

--- Riot War!
- We open on a new day. The Rebellion spreads further, ever growing, faster than the Angels and Loyalists can truly deal with while they’re distracted by Drakencult. (50 exp)
- Speaking of - the Drakencult land in Lowgarden and, faced with Rebels, immediately call down a dragon. There is a line of shattered space-time, like a crack in a mirror, from the apex of the Sciotherico. Down in Lowgarden, there is a roar as an elemental dragon births itself. (50 exp)
--- Pimp My Guber

- Styx heads out into the Rebel-held area of East Gate, following a lead he heard last session. Since he’s still technically the father of the rebellion, the transport system is conveniently swift. (50 exp)
- He arrives in East Gate and makes a beeline for East Gate Kustoms - the Guber shop. It’s run by Alvin Joiner who is meant to be a parody of Xzibit in Pimp My Ride, but nobody remembers how that voice goes and also Pimp My Ride hasn't been in the zeitgeist for a decade so he ends up pretty generic. (50 exp)

- Styx wants to know how they permanently power runes and Alvin wants to pay less for licensing the Guber copyright. They do business. (50 exp)
- After some haggling and some distant yells of “that’s a shit deal!!” from Dumbledorris who is nowhere nearby, Alvin take Styx to see the way they permanently power runes - a female Dwarf with a mohawk named Punky. (50 exp)
- Punky tells him it’s her Lorebond that allows her to permanently power runes - although it’s not without cost. Powering so many Gubers has given her a strange stretched sense of where all her runes are, and constant bad dreams. (50 exp)
- Styx promises to come back and use his Dream Needle to make her sleep better, something that she’d very much appreciate. She tells him to come back any time! (50 exp)
--- Onwards and Upwards!
- The rest of the party is busy figuring out how they’ll get up to the top of the Sciotherico and take out the Drakencult who lair there. Stop them and they’ll stop the daily assaults on the city, plus free up enough angels to make a dent in the spread of rebels. (50 exp)

- Styx heads to Student’s Lament to take over the group of angels there, bringing them to Bank so that they can fly the party up to the top of the great palace. (50 exp)
- Andromeda gets in touch with Hyper-Jesus to tell him why they’re letting their rebel-adjacent friend nick some angels. (50 exp)
- Luckily he’s kind of distracted right now - Fate is at the edge of the great river Deeprush, preparing to wade across, but Dispater’s back in the sky and trying to get control of the Seraphim that was just captured. He’s also worried about how to get past the blue dragon Mardük. Basically - lots on his plate, please don’t bother him unless you have solutions. (50 exp)
--- First Ascent Thwarted
- Styx arrives and the party ascends on angelback towards the top of the Sciotherico. As they get closer they see a pitch black rift in the side of the palace, like a hole in space. Circling it are winged figures - drakencult! (50 exp)

- The cultists descend, Flaming Furies on huge black wings supported by Zenas and Insanity Mammoths on wings that constantly explode and reform. (50 exp)
- Verbal barbs are traded and the threat of the Drakencult is too much since the angels are in flight mode. (50 exp)
- Styx commands the angels to descend, and the mocking laughter of the drakencult follows as they catch the updrafts back up towards the top of the palace. (50 exp)
- A new plan is formulated - the angels will arc up and around, coming in over the hole in the side of the palace. The bulk of the party will drop in from above while Styx lands on the peak with his angels and keeps the drakencult at bay. (50 exp)
--- HALO drop!
- On the way up the darkness wave begins to dissipate, allowing the party to see far and wide! They can see Mt Death-Frost a few miles away. Distantly, the black silhouette of Ereshkigal is growing its gravity well. (50 exp)
- The angels turn to zoom along the top of the palace, along the barrel of the macrocannon, rushing headlong towards the winged drakencult and the entry to rift! (50 exp)
- Styx sends the party’s angels upwards, peeling them off from the main group which land and begin to transform into attack form! Stasis beams begin blasting towards the cultists, who begin winging down to attack! (50 exp)
- It’s the opening the main party need. As one, they drop from the angels, angling themselves towards the rift! They whoosh past the distracted cultists, and at the last minute Andromeda casts Feather Fall! (50 exp)
- There is a spacial lensing effect as they fall into the void, everything else getting more and more distant as the rift gets closer. (50 exp)

- The blackness encompasses them one by one. From Styx’s perspective, they shoot like daggers into the hole, like they’re jumping to hyperspace. (50 exp)
--- The Orthoplex Crater
- The outside world is down a long tunnel, then it closes off. Their momentum is arrested inside a black dodecahedron. The air is like treacle. (50 exp)
- They turn, and realise that two of the walls of the dodecahedron are different - the stretch out, forming corridors that pierce into the innards of the Sciotherico. There is a strange effect as you move - it’s easy to step back the way you came - leaving a trail of compressed space behind you. (50 exp)
- They pick a route at random and explore, Andromeda kicking on her heartbeat vision when they reach a junction. Distances are strange, walls and floors the brassy mechanisms of the internal Sciotherico but fractal and shattered. (50 exp)
- Andromeda’s heart-vision detects a small group in one direction, and in the other they see a decayed chamber with a number of cultists praying around one of their number who is about to achieve apotheosis! (50 exp)

--- Suicide Bombers!!
- Suddenly, explosions in the party’s midst! A gang of Banjo Fishwicks appears in the middle of the party, blasting themselves in with explosions that hurt themselves as much as enemies! (50 exp)
- They cackle and there are calls for retreat, but Dumbledorris blows her Lady-mones and forces nearby men to obey her! Senor Romantico is well into it, as are a few of the Fishwicks. Andromeda turns it into Notcoke and gets COKED UP (50 exp)

- There are cries of “KILL EM ALL!” and Lonely Blade slashes in, getting blown back into the low-grav zone for his trouble. Andromeda unleashes a Magic Missile Punch barrage. (50 exp)
- While the others deal with the unseduced Fishwicks, Dumbledorris takes her new minions into the next area to disrupt the apotheosis! (50 exp)
- They blast into combat with their enemies - a gang of Fox-Shitt’s! The battle is now on two fronts - versus the Fox-Shitts and versus the Fishwicks. (50 exp)
- Dumbledorris attempts to cast Return to Mother on the partially apotheosised dragon… but it doesn’t work. The dragon, born of an ascendant Fox-Shitt, is effectively its own parent. (50 exp)
- RJ scuttles across the ceiling and drops onto the almost-complete dragon, fangs bared. “Poison is OP!” he yells as he falls. He disrupts the ritual, but fails to kill the Decay cultist in his shell. (50 exp)

- A blast of Decay washes around him, aging him 10 years, rotting his clothes and katana to uselessness, and fixing his voice (thank god). (50 exp)
- In return he’s focus-fired by nearly a whole room of Fox-Shitt’s. Their Decay Breath blasts out of their mouths, aging him immediately and drastically until he withers up and dies.... (50 exp)

--- The Longest Con
- Or it would have done, if RJ hadn’t been a Martian Inheritor the whole time! It’s been months since fighting the doppelgangers in Dwimmermount and he’s been a copy the whole time! What a ruse! (50 exp)

- The flesh melts off, revealing a red-skinned elf-like being, nude and clay, which immediately jumps into the crowds below. There’s an extra Fox-Shitt, but which is the real one? (50 exp)
- Senor Romantico sees this all goes down and yells to Andromeda - “flee! Save yourself!”. She says she won’t leave if RJ is still alive, but Senor Romantico assures her - “I saw him die! Just go!” (50 exp)
- One of the Fox-Shitt’s points to another and goes “it’s him! The copy!”. They all turn on him and kill him, the Martian Inheritor was short-lived. (50 exp)
- Or was he!? While the Fox-Shitt’s murder the imposter, another of their number steps back through his spacetime channel and towards the entry zone. (50 exp)
- The party, including the new Red Inheritor, step back through their warp-channels towards the entrance. The Fox-Shitts chase after, using their own step-warps to follow along. (50 exp)
- Andromeda summons an illusion of a black-scaled POWERLAD to cover their escape, telling the enemies that “they went thataway!”, a classic. (50 exp)
- They warp out from the dodecahedron, swimming outwards faster and faster until they’re out over the city! They look up and see the sky is clear, save for Styx in his bot. The angels were destroyed, but so were the attacking Drakencult guards. (50 exp)
- They begin to fall and Styx zooms down to scoop them up! The day is saved! Unfortunately due to his death gimmick, Senor Romantico falls to his death. There’ll be a new Romantico next session for sure. Joy. (50 exp)
--- Riot War!
- As they rest and lick their wounds, the war for the city continues to rage. The Resistance spreads, but angels are beginning to lock down the city centre. Hyper-Jesus will surely win in the end! (50 exp)
Total: 2250 exp

Misc:

- AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa bonus (50 exp)
- Aggressive Negotiations bonus (50 exp)
- Balls to the Wall bonus (50 exp)
- Best of Intentions bonus (50 exp)
- Better Part of Valour bonus (50 exp)
- Brutal Kill bonus (50 exp)
- Classic Charles bonus (50 exp)
- Dramatic Escape bonus (50 exp)
- Enmity Inciter bonus (50 exp)
- Fame bonus (50 exp)
- Holy bonus (50 exp)
- I Immediately Regret This Decision bonus (50 exp)
- Leave a Man Behind bonus (50 exp)
- Long Deliberation bonus (50 exp)
- Mind Control to Major Tom bonus (50 exp)
- Monster Infighting bonus (50 exp)
- Noblebright bonus (50 exp)
- Pundemonium bonus (50 exp)
- Ridiculously Bad Rolling bonus (50 exp)
- Split the Party bonus (50 exp)
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong bonus (50 exp)
Total: 1050 exp

Party Roles and Individual Exp:

- Remembrancer (Carter / Styx - 100 exp ea)

- Caller (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Mapper (Carter / Styx - 100 exp)

- Guard (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Art Attack bonus (Charles - 100 exp)
- Artapalooza bonus (Charles - 100 exp) - Chippo Man bonus (Carter*2 - 100 exp ea.) - Hummous Hero bonus (Tim D - 100 exp) - Olive Oligarch bonus (Tim D - 100 exp) - Mulled Maniac bonus (Tim D - 100 exp)- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Carter, Kitty - 500 exp)

Active Businesses:

- Blood Honey Healing 4 U (Co-dependent businesses)

--- Honey Healing. Safe. 1095sp. (Bertha)

--- Blood Honey 4 U. Safe. 10515sp. (Sir Robyn)

Rumours:

-

Death Toll and Injuries:

- RJ… or so it seemed! He’d been a doppelganger all along!

Exp Totals:

- Suzie / Dumbledorris, Level 6 Inheritor: 40268 (Level up at 72000)
- Timothy / RJ, Level 6 Martian Inheritor: 36101 (Level up at 72000)
*WHAT A TWIST!*
- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 5 Muscle Wizard: 23376 (Level up at 36000)
-- Devotee of Ninhursag, Bond 8 (-40% exp)

- Tim D / Mortlocke, Level 3 Necromancer: 5350 (Level up at 9000)
*DING!* +1d4 HP! +1 level 2 spell/day! +free spell! +backstory!
- Charles, ??? Romantico, Level 3 Barbarian: 5044 (Level up at 8000)
*DING!* +1d8 HP! +rolls on Barbarian Levelup Table! +1 round of rage! +backstory!

Exp Totals 2 - Styx and the Twelve Apostles:
- Carter / Styx, Level 7 Goblin: 81366 (Level up at 128000)
--- Break, Robo-Armoured Goblin Buddy
--- 5 more Goblin Buddies
--- Dominique, Level 4 Necromancer: 9395 (Level up at 18000)
--- Ilda, Level 4 Fighter: 8466 (Level up at 16000)
--- Heriael, Level 3 Elf (Hauntling Glister): 6395 (Level up at 12000)
--- Zam, Level 2 Fighter: 2395 (Level up at 4000)
--- Hrundlfrust, Level 2 Specialist: 1895 (Level up at 3000)
--- Blixxer, Level 2 Specialist: 1895 (Level up at 3000)  

Absent or Retired:
- Timothy / Sir Robyn, Level 6 Magic-User: 62159 (Level up at 72000)
- James / Abhor Global, Level 3 Extras: 4862 (Level up at 6000) 
- George / Oliver Snels, Level 2 Barbarian: 2883 (Level up at 4000)   
- Ollie / Flaming Fury, Level 6 Dwarf: 49511 (Level up at 70400)

-- Devotee of Ereshkigal, Bond 4 (-20% exp)  
- Charles / Galaxy Johnson, Level 6 Reincarnated Shadow-Elf: 53575 (Level up at 96000)
-- Devotee of Ereshkigal, Bond 3 (-15% exp)
- Jevgeni / Antez, Level 2 Necromancer: 3571 (Level up at 4500)
- Grecia / Glycon, Level 2 Elf (Sloomit Waghorn): 3571 (Level up at 6000)
- Ollie / Synthia, Level 5 Inheritor: 24881 (Level up at 36000)
-- Devotee of Ninhursag, Bond 3 (-15% exp)
- Henry / Witchfinder-Sergeant, Level 5 Cleric (Unorthodox): 14963 (Level up at 28000)
--- Erstwhile, Level 2 Muscle Wizard: 3105 (Level up at 4500)
- James / Ratimir, Level 6 Ratman: 33991 (Level up at 48000)
- Andy / Carrie Meleste, Level 6 Termaxian Cleric: 52811 (Level up at 56000)
--- 4 Henchmen Undeserving of Names, Level 0 Bootlickers
- Kyle / Gimlass the Brave, Level 2 Dwarf: 2257 (Level up at 4400)
- Ollie / Tremendo Picante, Level 2 Ratman: 2654 (Level up at 3000)
- James / Raaf van Held, Level 4 Fighter: 14838 (Level up at 16000)