Monday 24 June 2019

Session 229 - Fear and Self-Loathing

A split session that results in the secrets of Kink being revealed, and yet another regenerating serial killer in the hills being abducted then destroyed!
I'd say it went rather well.

Also welcome to newcomer Jennifer who is playing a Fighter raised by falcons! Honestly this is one of the less weird character backstories, which tells you a lot about the game really...




Maps:


An Article from the Red Letter:
SENT by VENUS

New Moondin heartthrob Adonis Barrett has traded hectic streets for primal living in Kink. Celeb writer Chastitie Bellecheeks explores his revolutionary lifestyle in an exclusive interview.

Wearing nothing but a simple beaver fur throw, codpiece-less leather hose and chapped boots, Adonis Barrett reclines unashamedly on a hand-crafted recliner in an abandoned Kink artisannerie. "When you're out in the wilds, you're in tune with your real self," says the 6'2 pirate-turned-sex symbol, who recently celebrated his 24th birthday with an intimate gathering in a shabby-chic reclaimed church with a few close amours. "Sex, locally-sourced vegan food, sex – just the basic elements of life. It’s like permanent rehab."

It’s now a month since the self-styled Bewitching Pirate of Kink moved to his new digs, uprooting the lifestyle paradigm in Moondin’s growing yup-pirate community. Situated just beyond the storm shell, off the map Kink has become a destination of desire for many a Moondiner seeking detox living. 

"New Moondin is so yesterday," Barrett says, effortlessly twirling a daemoncarved ornamental mahogany six-shooter accessory with a sleight-of-hand of four. "Where last year's season was rebuilding the infrastructures of society, now it's all about letting nature take hold. We’re starting a revolution here.”
Taking my hand, Barrett shows me around the well-preserved walled town, whose streets ooze post-apoc pioneer charm. Kink offers a host of affordable, back-to-basics nests for the considerate gentrifier, whilst retaining the necessities of early-modern living including a luxury barber, stonecarver and sex dungeon.

Of course, the sex appeal is part of this move back to nature, and Kink offers freedom that the Snelsman-oppressed streets of New Moondin simply can’t provide. After a tour of the town we retreat to a log cabin lined with nouveau-naïve tapestries where we make passionate love, or “liberation” as Barrett calls it.
Mid-coitus, Barrett outlines his typical day, which starts with a high-nutrient shake, before exploring the town’s charming annihilated ruins for relics to compliment his fashion. “Out in the wilds I’m no longer bound by shoot schedules, so I can focus my energies on what outfit to wear, or what rune effect best compliments my look,” he adds, as we simultaneously climax.

As the interview comes to a close, I find myself feeling better about myself and my body image, and a near-irresistable urge to return to this zero-footprint lifestyle in the future. I ask Barrett whether the lifestyle has changed him. “Obviously, I’m constantly evolving, but I think the Kink lifestyle definitely changes you in ways otherwise impossible elsewhere. Sometimes I think about a return to normality, but why do that when you can be the sexiest pirate ever?”

"I guess I’m my own worst enemy.”
Chastitie Bellecheeks is author of Knowing Me, Knowing Dan, an Intergalacticist biography of Dustin Johnson



Session 229 - Fear and Self-Loathing

Date:
14 years after the End.
October-November

Characters:


New Characters:
- Siouxsie, a Fighter raised by falcons until one of them scratched out her eye. She’s conveniently been living in the Mourning Wood ever since, at least until somebody turned the whole forest to stone.

Character Backstories:
- Barrett: Very soon after he finally became the leader of the Witch-Pirate of Guernsey’s fleet, on his birthday, he was given the “gift” of a mutiny. What a terrible birthday party! On October 4th in and out of game, and on your actual birthday, an NPC of your choice shows up.



- Zulu: Now that they’re both beautiful people, Zulu idolises Barrett. He’s clearly playing hard to get. When Barrett succeeds at a roll, you get +1 to doing the same thing.



- Grumpy: Grumpy’s father was an angry alcoholic, even by the standards of Dwarf alcoholism. It all came to a head when his dad found out that he, a stone-born Dwarf son, was having it off with a real Dwarf woman. +1 Dexterity.



- Andromeda: Before the apocalypse, Andromeda was travelling with a mob of her paradox clones when she broke a draconic taboo and lost her wings! She told the others to go on without her and walked. While fleeing, you can lose your movement to grant your Flee roll to another.





Salvage:
- 3300 obols-worth of clean grain (3300 exp)
- The real Zulu in a depressive state
Total: 3300 exp

Murder:
- A hook-handed murderer called Dr Hook (100 exp)
- 13 skellingtons (325 exp)
Total: 425 exp


Overland Exploration:
- Set Forage - Ferfect Chicken (50 exp)
Total: 50 exp

Events:

--- Expedition Day 3 - Team Hunky Buddies: Barrett & Zulu Settle Down
- Sunrise over the ruined town of Kink. The hyper-charismatic Pirate Adonis Barrett and the beautiful, imperious alt-African princess Zulu Snakebite ride through the gate on the back of a huge antelope. Its hooves clop over the cobbles.
- Hidden beneath Barrett’s duster are the pair of six-shooters he stole from Pearl, the gunslinger who they found living in this town. Zulu has Pearl’s other armament - a lever-action rifle. She cracks the barrel to see she’s got 15 bullets left. More than enough to protect them from any demons they find, she hopes.
- Their general sense of unease at being out of Kink abates. Something ties them to the town where they became beautiful and saw their old selves melt away in the rain.
- They dismount and swagger through the streets, calling out for Samuel. He’s Pearl’s handsome lover, and definitely tied up in their present weirdness. Running theory is that they’ve all caught “damselitis” from being in this town, and maybe he’ll know how to fix it.
- They soon come across Samuel, who heard their cries. He asks after Pearl, and is horrified when Barrett tells him that Pearl got taken by demons! She left the guns so that they could go save her.
- When they ask him for more detail about the demon that gave him damselitis, he tells them that it was a big black-masked lust demon brute who’d stole a priest’s robes to desecrate them. Samuel, then a glorious warrior, had leapt from the church roof onto its back and stabbed it to death. With its dying breath it cursed him with damselitis, and his warrior skills have been lost ever since.
- Suddenly there is a loud growling moaning sound from the east! The lust demons are attacking again, as they do every day! Samuel tells them to get to cover and runs away, and both Zulu and Barrett shoot at him! They completely miss though, the damselitis is getting to them!

--- Seducing the Lust Demons
- Pounding down the streets towards them are swarms of black imps and two towering 8’ tall behemoths with black masks and whips!



- Barrett is quickly wrapped up by the whips of one of the big demons, easily taken down, while the other goes for Zulu. It all seems over until Barrett lathers his one up with a thousand thousand compliments! Absolutely gobsmacked and kind of won over, the demons just… stop attacking.
- They end up spending the rest of the month in Kink, unable to leave due to whatever’s holding them here and constantly chaperoned by the Lust Demons. No more demons attack, strangely, and they see no sign of Samuel as they explore the ruins.

--- Expedition Day 3 - Team Bunker Buddies: Return to New Moondin
- In the camp in the stone forest where they spent the night, Grumpy is explaining to everyone that he’s going to have to run back to town to find a way around his “cock block” issue. Hopefully the demons back home will have some sort of cure! To his surprise everyone’s down for returning to New Moondin. If Barrett and Zulu want to split the party, that’s on them!
- They decamp and head back to the wagon, making sure that their consignment of grain is safe. It’ll take a lot of work to sort rotten grain from clean, but what’s there is bound to be valuable.
- As they prepare to leave, to everyone’s surprise, a new person shows up from the forest! Wasn’t everything in here meant to be dead!? Her name is Siouxsie, pronounced Susie, and she’s down for joining the party to make some cash.
- They get back to the wagon and hitch it up as fat grey clouds roll overhead and a bitter wind starts blowing. There’s an eye-stinging scent of bleach mixed with the scent of impending rain. Acid Rain for sure. They rig up the sails as a protective cover - nobody wants their gear to be eaten away!
- They roll off down the road and the rain pounds down. Dustin Johnson’s eyes light up when he spots something moving into cover off the road - it’s THREE chickens! Ferfect Chickens, covered in fluffy feathers! He scoops them up and they happily sit in the wagon under the canopy, pecking away at the massive pile of grain.



- The acid rain eats through the sail over the next few hours, so Andromeda rigs up her huge tent to be a new canopy. It holds as they rumble through the winding valley road towards the crackling Storm Shell, rolling through the static fuzz of the barrier itself. The rain’s acidity is negated by the Shell, but the tent will still need some minor repairs.
- Some time after noon they reach the broken bridge across the gorge. This time Dustin’s ready, and with a combination of Abduct and some ropes they pull the wagon across the bridge. All good!

--- Grumpy Takes a Piss
- As soon as the wagon pulls up in New Moondin, Grumpy jumps off the cart and runs. Red follows behind, laughing and mocking. The others drop off the grain at the Goblin Bank and get them to sort it for them. It will later turn out that there was 3300 obols-worth of good grain amongst the trash!
- At Julgoor’s shop, Grumpy fills the Greed Demon in on his sensitive issue. After some haggling and worrying, Julgoor finds a solution - pay! For the low low price of an obol a day, Grumpy will be able to unlock the use of his bits. There’s a coin slot on the top and everything.



- Grumpy sprints to the staff toilet and relieves himself over the course of several 10 minute Turns. Phew!
- The party decide to rest up for the rest of the month. October’s travels have really taken a toll, and this way they can listen around for rumours in town!

--- Admin Adventures
- The acid rain and melancholy mists of the post-apocalyptic autumn have taken their toll, and during their weeks resting up and looking after their mental health several people make sure to get some crucial admin done.
- Red donates some startup cash to form a publishing house - the Red Letter - who will publish scandalous celebrity goss and poorly editorialised accounts of the Bunker Buddies’ adventures. She also receives a letter from Sir Robyn confirming that yep, he’s definitely dead. His tower near Despond is all hers, and it’s full of his riches!
- Grumpy sets up a literal umbrella company - they sell umbrellas with varying resistances to acid rain. DJ adds a chicken shop to his mining business - comfort food is exactly what you need after a long day in the mines.
- Also during this month, the party hear many rumours from the local area. Key among them is a rumour that the skeletons preying on pilgrims in the hills are back! With newcomer Siouxsie raring for a fight, they decide that November’s expedition will be a return to the hills near the Saviourbone Mine.

--- November - Team Hunky Buddies: Sweet Christmas
- After a few weeks of wandering around town, getting followed around by Lust Demons, and growing increasingly suspicious of their canned replies, Zulu and Barrett have more or less cased the town. They haven’t seen Samuel for ages.
- As the days dragged on into weeks, the Lust Demons got increasingly lower quality. They don’t seem to appear if you look at them from the corner of your eye, only popping in when you look straight at them, and they keep repeating the same lines.
- Now, as November rolls on and the weather stays strangely neutral, they lock themselves in the church and make sex noises from the belltower in the hopes of luring him out. It doesn’t work.
- Handily, Barrett recently got a backstory that means an NPC of his choice turns up! Out from the sky, apropos of nothing, Lulu Claus arrives driving a sleigh pulled by reindeer! Say whaaaat?!



- She grants them presents - copies of the six-shooters and lever-action rifle - and tells them to look beneath the Barber to find what they seek! Then she rides off, jingling all the way.

--- Look After Yourself
- They go to the Barber shop and hear what sound like dogs barking human words. It is creepy until someone mentions Scooby-Doo. They also find drag marks on the floor! The drag marks shimmer and fade in their vision, but nevertheless when they move it aside they find a trapdoor!
- Zulu scratched “trapdoor under barber” into the arm in case of shenanigans and they descend stealthily. Barrett slips in first, Zulu follows his lead. At the bottom of the ladder they land softly and look around the room. Dogs are chained to the walls, and a plump child-height figure like the Venus of Willendorf sits at a desk, writing.
- A dog notices Barrett and starts whining that Barrett is him! It’s obvious that these dogs are their originals, somehow disguised. The figure at the desk turns at the noise, revealing a lustful black mask for a face. A Lust Demon!
- The Lust Demon tries to trick Barrett into thinking she’s Samuel for a while before just dropping all the trickery. The dogs become people chained to the wall. Zulu, Barrett and Pearl's originals are among them. They’re all horrifyingly depressed, imperfect originals, and if a perfect form goes too far from their original they start to lose the will to live.
- A moral quandary - if you knew that you were an idealised copy of a person, and that in order to live you had to keep the real you close by in an extreme depressive state, would you make them suffer in order to allow yourself to live? Would you force your own original self to live in misery in order to live as a fantasy copy of them?
- Neither Barrett nor Zulu give this quandary a second glance. Of course they’d fuck themselves over! Being beautiful is awesome! They’re already referring to the real versions as “dogs”.


- Zulu grabs her dog and absconds! The illusion doesn’t seem to affect touch, since she can feel real human limbs under her hands. She climbs up and away while Barrett talks to the demon, finds her way to her antelope steed, and gallops off. Convenient exit!


- Barrett makes a deal with the Lust Demon. He’ll bring Pearl back, and in exchange the Lust Demon will give him back his original self. Chained to the wall, the real Barrett weeps as he sees the idealised replica of himself matter-of-factly consign him to a lifetime of tortured misery.



- Barrett climbs the ladder and back out into Kink, kicking dirt off the ladder onto the face of his original sobbing below. Today is a good day!


--- November - Team Bunker Buddies: Skeleton Hunt
- Much recovered from October’s expedition, the Bunker Buddies prepare to head out into the hills south of the Saviourbone Mine - the great bone dragon skeleton that is the remains of POWERLAD.
- November opens to the Warning - a cloudy sky flickering with cloud-to-cloud lightning and an omnipresent light rain. The Warning usually portends a deadly Gas Front, but the Gas Front never comes. A few days later the Warning abates and they set out into the rain in the late afternoon.
- By early evening they’re heading off the road towards where they fought some skeletons back in the Spring. They’re loudly stating that they have so many pilgrims in their wagon and it’s getting late so they totally have to make camp and definitely won’t need to set a watch,
- As back then, they see a lantern in the hills. Red goes forward alone while Grumpy leads the others in the darkness to hide their numbers. As they approach the lantern falls to the ground in a suspiciously ambushy location.
- Despite being ready for an attack, Red doesn’t see the hook-handed villain appear behind her! He monologues, giggling, then crits her in the stomach! He laughs uproariously as she staggers backwards, and figures approach to finish the job!



--- Skeleton Attack!
- Andromeda bursts forward and calls forth a Storm Shell. Red and the villainous Dr Hook are within, the reinforcements trapped outside! Dr Hook leaps out through the barrier, getting zapped for his trouble, and starts leading his troops from the rear!



- In the light, the reinforcements are shown to be skeletons with loose skin draped over them, armed with rusty swords. The skin slips around as they walk, a horrifying cured armour.
- Beams and arrows lance out from inside the Storm Shell. Targeting Dr Hook himself is ineffective since he’s hiding behind all those skeletons… at least until DJ casts Abduct on him and sends him floating into the air!



- Grumpy was caught outside the Storm Shell and starts striking the skeletons with his glaive. It’s ineffective due to skeleton got-to-use-smashy-weapons bullshit, so he tries to stab the polearm through one and use it to smash the others. It half works, and he loses his grip on the glaive.
- Red aims and fires at the floating Dr Hook, blasting his head off! Not so easy to hide behind your minions when you’re 20’ in the air!



- Andromeda drops the Storm Shell and the others run out to wipe out the skeleton horde. Grumpy’s been surrounded for a little while and taken some licks, so she gets in position and uses Sacrifice. Energy arcs between them, healing Grumpy and destroying a bunch of skeletons!
- Siouxsie abandons her sword and starts punching skeletons in the head. It’s not particularly effective. DJ continues to fail to hit anything with his ball-peen hammer, even though it's the perfect weapon for smashing skeletons.



- Andromeda suddenly remembers that Pearl is here! Just in time for her to look back and see the gunslinger spread wide angel-tech wings and rise slowly into the air. Long beam rifles emerge from her sleeves, ratcheting forward to aim at the skeletons. Andromeda’s crush on her grows!
- Grumpy takes advantage of the skeletons’ last orders - “kill that dwarf!” - to kite the skeletons! The others form a line and whale on the skeletons as they run through. Siouxsie smashes one in the eye and smashes another’s groin before Andromeda uses Sacrifice again to destroy the rest.






- Pearl, still charging her lasers, looks disappointed that she didn’t get to blow the skeletons to smithereens with her ridiculously cool angel-tech exosuit.

--- Interrogations
- With the enemies defeated, Andromeda and Grumpy crowd around Pearl to ask her where the hell she got that thing! The wings and guns fold back in, and Pearl tells them that she got a blacksmith to make it for her in their weeks off!
- Red meanwhile has found the head of Dr Hook and begins blowing up its windpipe, like she did with Gatsby. He tells her that he serves the Witch Queen who has a base just outside the Shell, that she’s svelte, and has a head like an egg. Despite describing her as “extremely female”, those in the know theorise that this must be Singular Thay.

--- Back in town: Zulu Returns!
- After a hard day’s ride with her depressed self lashed to the antelope in front of her, Zulu reaches New Moondin. Her original is no longer a dog, just clearly her with crippling self-esteem issues and deep all-encompassing depression.
- Zulu drags her original into her obnoxiously racist African-themed pub and chats to the blackface-wearing bartender. She says that her original is her sister and puts her up in the Shaman Suite.

--- Kink: Barrett Sets Off
- Barrett leaves his original behind in the care of the Lust Demon and sets off back to New Moondin. He’s got just over a week to travel to New Moondin, get Pearl, and bring her back to Kink before the Wisdom damage kills him. Should be simple… right?

Total: 3000 exp

Team Bonus:
- Antagonist Appeaser bonus
- Balls to the Wall bonus
- Brutal Kill bonus
- Classic Charles bonus
- Diplomancy bonus
- Dramatic Battle bonus
- Dramatic Escape bonus
- Fame bonus
- Holy bonus
- Leave a Man Behind bonus
- Long Deliberation bonus
- Noblebright bonus
- Pundemonium bonus
- Ridiculously Bad Rolling bonus
- Rumour Investigator bonus
- Split the Party bonus
- SpoOoOoky bonus
- Tactical Fighting bonus
Total: 900 exp

Individual Bonus:
- Chronicler (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Expedition Leader (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Cartographer (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Paymaster (Charles / DJ - 100 exp)
- Quartermaster (Ollie / Zulu - 100 exp)
- Vanguard (Tom / Barrett - 100 exp)
- Triage (Timothy / Red - 100 exp)
- Chef (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Charles, Timothy, Kitty - 500 exp ea.)
- Chippo Champion bonus (Carter*2, Tom*2 - 100 exp ea.)
- Art Attack bonus (Carter, Timothy, Charles, Tom, Ollie - 100 exp ea.) - Artapalooza bonus (Charles - 100 exp)

- Fiction Fanatic bonus (Tom - 100 exp)
- Character Sheet Creator bonus (Tom - 500 exp)

Experience Totals:
- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 6 Laddite Cleric: 29926 (Level up at 56000)
- Tom / Adonis Barrett, Level 6 Specialist: 26649 (Level up at 48000)
- Tim / Red, Level 5 Fighter: 25726 (Level up at 32000)
- Ollie / Zulu Snakebite, Level 5 Barbarian: 21532 (Level up at 32000)
- Charles / Dustin Johnson, Level 5 Intergalacticist Cleric: 21281 (Level up at 28000)
- Carter / Granite "Grumpy" Ironjaw, Level 4 Grudgesmith Dwarf: 10483 (Level up at 17600)
- James G / Siân, Level 4 Necromancer: 9561 (Level up at 18000) Level up: +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! +Backstory!
- Jennifer / Siouxsie, Level 1 Fighter: 960 (Level up at 2000)

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