Session 436 - Maggoty Man and the Ghastly Ghouls

Date: 2nd December 1625

Zenith Deity: The Lady

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Moon Face: Clean Face

Events:

--- Maggot Man

- In a hidden chamber within a Necromantic dungeon at the end of a box canyon, our heroes face a man on a slab covered in maggots who shrieks that he is becoming immortal. Hooded cultists with wiggly daggers stand behind in the gloom.

- He is Dargle, one of the Triumverate of Evil Necromancers! Mancy, Hidra's enthralled yet recalcitrant minion, is also part of said Triumverate. He is very much least among equals though.

- Dargle monologues about the process, how the maggots are feeding on his flesh and replacing it with immortal flesh far superior!

- Ghost Snels chucks a holy symbol at the maggots, which burns them! He calls forth the miracle of See No Evil, becoming invisible and intangible to Chaos and vice versa, then pours Oil of Brutal Noise all over the maggits.

- Sulphur commands his skeletons to crush maggots while the rest of the party make as much noise as possible! The skeletons starts getting covered in fleshy silk. He punches a cultist and, though he misses, discovers that these cultists are actually skeletons with skin stretched over them!

- Hidra's intelligent armour, Castigate Pox, gets battered as Hidra crits his way down the line of cult-skellies. Castigate immediately starts screaming for repairs!

- The human form of Dargle finally explodes from brutal noise, splashing maggots everywhere! Mancy starts eating maggots, to Hidra's bemusement.

--- Two-in-One Necromancer

- It transpires that eating the maggots means that Mancy and Dargle are now one! Or Dargle is haunting Mancy? Hard to say. They discuss consuming Balagos to become the Triumverate in One Body.

- The party leave to explore further, and on the way Ghost Snels gets a big download about the Necromancers of Un'Goth and their Necromantic philosophy.
- Un'Goth, a preppy, young and outgoing Necromancer wanted to delve deep into the Earth, kill Shub-Niggurath, and turn the dead beast in the core of the earth to their will. Their rival faction was led by Cyrus Carnithrex Maximus, whose plan for Shub-Niggurath was basically to raise an army of vampires and undead and a skeletal Apocalypse Dragon to fight it to death.

--- Cinematic Budget Cuts

- They head down some spooky stairs, seeing tracks on the ceiling left by ghost-eating hyenas and choosing not to follow, before coming to a door with ghoul claws on it.

- They open it up, see the ghouls within turn to them with a baleful gaze, and let Sulphur's army of 30 skeletons go in there before shutting the door.
- Bangs, crashes, things bouncing off the door, and finally... a ring-ring-ring of a metal plate rolling on its rim before clattering into silence. They open the door, and lo! The fight was resolved off-screen!

--- The Black Blade

- They enter and discover the ghouls were in berths on the walls, like a pod hotel. They had been holding an academic debate until the skeletons busted in!

- There is a terrible smell as the two survivors, Ghasts, rise. They are however quite willing to chat.

- Ghost Snels isn't pissing about with that. Under the effects of a borrowed miracle he rushes forward and grabs the Black Blade of the Dardanelles from where it sits on display at the far side of the room!

- The Blade snicker-snacks between the ghasts, vanishing them across the nearest border! This is the true power of the Black Blade that felled Constantinople!

- With the Ghasts deported, he hands the blade to Hidra and the party loots the room. They find gold, magic items, books, all sorts!

--- Dinner, Merely Fine

- With that they decide to have dinner. Unfortunately they don't have much.

- The resulting meal of bootleather and seaweed is saved by the garnish, in all honesty. Not great, not terrible. The call it A Bad Days' Catch.

Total: 6000 exp

Murders:

- Dargle, Necromancer (250 exp)

- Dargle's Skeleton Cultists (150 exp)

- 8 ghouls (600 exp)

- 2 ghasts (200 exp)
Total: 1200 exp

Loot:

- 29 gold pieces (1450 exp)

- A Shield

- Elven Chain weighs as Light armour, protects as Medium (+4 AC)

- Limb Eater Cleaver. Cleave off a limb to heal 2d10 HP. Permanent, painless.

- Elf Key works on any lock to create a portal to the Gardens of Ynn.

- Book #123 - Far Qeylong (100 exp)

- Book #139 - On the Holy Roman Empire (100 exp)

- Book #312 - Captured by the POWERLAIRD (100 exp)

- Book #129 - The Shame of Dwarves (100 exp)

Total: 1850 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler and Paymaster (200 exp/level)
- George the Expedition Leader and Cartographer and Quartermaster (300 exp/level)
- Kitty the Vanguard and Chef (200 exp/level)

Totals:

- Kitty / Sulphur, Level 6 Boo-gilist: 44173 (Level up at 72000)

- Carter / Hidra, Level 5 Fighter: 17974 (Level up at 32000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Hit! +1 to Crit/Fumble! +Backstory!

- George / Ghost Snels, Level 4 Denialist Cleric: 16474 (Level up at 18000)

Session 435 - You Get a Minion! You Get a Minion!

Date: 25th November 1625

Zenith Deity: Alaunus

Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent

Moon Face: Pocked Face

New Backstory:

- Sulphur force-fed Nieval the Good back when he nearly died in the ruined castle. Double healing when you give somebody else food.

- Hidra brought out his finest long-prepared supplies when his Lord was restored. It went great! When you take a break, you may declare that you're planning a heist. Next turn you may flash back to the heist planning session and alter the present!

- Havarti encouraged her own lynching in order to feign death and escape the Veins of the Earth! +1 damage per ally surrounding a foe.

- Ghost Snels had a lapse of faith, but when the Pope revealed himself to be a Protestant clone of Ghost Snels' nephew, his faith was restored!! +2 to beneficial cleric magic.

Events:

--- Unhappy Valley

- The party debate what to do now that they have a big wooden goose to fly around in (so long as they stay in the region of menacing spikes). It's got a little bit more range than that, so at Sulphur's request they decide to hit up the spooky valley that fills one with dread to look upon.

- The goose is loose! It lands at the edge of the valley which is choked with mist. A few big flaps of its wings blows aside the mist for a few minutes, revealing a small army of about a hundred skeletons standing at the end of the box canyon.

- Sulphur snorts a line of bone dust, punches himself in the eye, and casts Detect Animated Dead. Only about a third of the skeletons are animated, the rest are just freestanding bones. Closer inspection shows that all the skeletons have hinges at the joints.

- Sulphur slurps up a Last Breath and casts Subjugate Dead a bunch until he's captured all thirty of the animated skeletons! You get a minion! Good thing they brought a Boo-Gilist!

--- Ghost-Eaters

- There are two cave entrances at the bottom of the canyon, and further up the slope are a couple of different doors which seem intentional. They decide to start at the bottom and work their way up.

- Nieval goes first, hears growling, and backs away so that Sulphur can send in his skeleton army.

- The skeletons come across... hyenas! Havarti pushes through and Tames one with her Halfling mind powers. You get a minion! The hyena accedes to her will, and she discovers that it has the power to walk on walls.

 
- One of the skeletons is lost to a hyena on the ceiling that reaches down from above and grabs it by the skull, they witness the pack devouring the skeleton's animating spirit. These hyenas can eat ghosts!

- They leave the hyenas to it. No harm, no foul. The other cave corridor is half-height, leading to the skeletons bonking their skulls. There is a mysterious patch of wet seaweed hanging from the wall, which is immediately gathered for food.

--- Necromancer vs Boogilist

- Ghost Snels runs ahead for he has a miracle that makes him unaffectable and imperceivable to Chaotic beings, and vice versa. He enters the next room and uses context clues to deduce that skeletons are digging out one of the walls.

- He retreats and the others relay his words to Sulphur, since he's also a Chaotic being and as such cannot see the Cleric.

- The others peer into the room, seeing a group of 5 zombies digging through the wall. Sulphur rolls in and poaches one of the skeletons. Good to have a Necromancer when the Dead are around! 

- Unfortunately there's an enemy Necromancer in here too, unseen by Ghost Snels for obvious See No Evil reasons, and he's plenty miffed that someone's nicked one of his workers.

- The Necromancer starts to cast to steal his zombie back, but Hidra is faster! Hidra's whip drags him through his zombie coterie and into the middle of the room, cancelling the spell and making its magics go wild!

- Instead of Subjugating the zombies the spell inverts and subjugates the Necromancer to Hidra's will! You get a minion! His name is Mancy and I have a wonderful time finding his voice, but I'm worried that I've created an ambiguously gay tulpa who knows what mpreg means.

--- Dig! Dig! Dig! Diiiiig!

- The fight is over quicker than it started. Hidra commands his minion to stand down his own minions. Apparently Mancy is down here as a sort of punishment detail, finding a way to dig into the complex proper.

- They question him and discover that this is the ancient tomb of Un'Goth (quoth Sulphur - "so a prep") who once ran or at least was involved with the cult of Tyrsis. He knows of various treasures within, such as the Black Blade of the Dardanelles and the Spirit-Tomb of Po-Ki-Man.

- Sulphur sets his skeletons army to digging through the wall. Many hands etc.

- They check out the room behind Mancy and discover 6 canopic jars (which is somewhat anachronistic). Each has an organ floating within, but each also has some sort of tasty ingredient like the salt-packed skin or the balsamic vinegar preserving the brain. All lick their lips and consider whether they're down for cannibalism. They share the jars around.

--- Dinner Party

- There's going to be some time before the skeletons can dig through that dang wall, so they decide to cook something.

- Ghost Snels forces Mancy to eat the strange enoki that he picked up from the floor near the Morning Light Mountain shelf-fungus goblins. Mancy eats and starts to foam as the enoki replicate.

- Hidra leaps forth and rips the fungus from his minion's throat! He casts it into the fire, destroys it.

- Nostradama, meanwhile, is cooking what she calls the California Dinner Party from seaweed, human meat, and cheese. How does she know about California? Maybe she reads Spanish classics? We just don't know. It's moderately tasty at least.

- Hidra "reads" the dungeon with his backstory powers. It's a single level (from above) but tiered like a hill village.

- Sulphur converts a skeleton into a bookshelf by reforming the rib cage. Sick.

--- Onwards and Inwards

- With that, the wall breaks through! The skeletons and zombies mill about.

- The walls within are a smooth black stone. Possibly polished basalt, possibly rasterised souls. Who can say?

- Ghost Snels asks Mancy if Necromancers have their own language, but no.

- They explore this part of the complex. They come to a statue carved of that same black stone. It's a big guy in robes, huge pauldrons, clutching a skull. His head gouts smoke. It looks a bit like Ghost Snels but Mancy insists that this is Ur'Goth.

--- I Announce the Sacred Word - Open!

- They explore further and find some stairs upwards. Sulphur has an idea though.

- He heads back to the statue, slurps a Last Breath, and says "OPEN!".

- The skull hinges backwards, revealing a button that presses itself. A secret door grinds aside.

- Three more canopic jars are within. There is a further door.

--- The Maggot Man

- They open the next door and see a man lying on a slab who writhes with maggots. He is surrounded by 6 robed cultists.

- "Who enters my immortality chamber??"
- Mancy reveals that he is the third member of the TRIUMVERATE OF EVIL NECROMANCERS!!!

- The party discuss the tautological nature of this statement.

- The Triumverate are made up of Mancy, Dargle and the de facto leader Balagos who wields the Doomed Axe of Castigate Pox. Hidra is very very interested.
- We end, as ever, on a cliffhanger!

Total: 9000 exp

Treasures:

- 9 Canopic Jars containing various flavours (4500 exp)

Total: 4500 exp

Foes:

- A small army of skeletons (300 exp)
- One ghost-eating hyena, ensorcelled (100 exp)
- A Necromancer (300 exp)
- Five zombies, kinda (50 exp)

Total: 750 exp

OOC: 

- Carter the Chronicler (100 exp/level)

- Charles the Expedition Leader, Paymaster and Artist (300 exp/level)

- George the Cartographer (100 exp/level)
- Ollie the Quartermaster (100 exp/level)
- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/level)

- Zoë the Chef (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- Zoë / Nostradama, Level 6 Cleric of Nonanism: 44351 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Sulphur, Level 6 Boo-gilist: 39956 (Level up at 72000)

- Charles / Nieval the Good, Level 5 Specialist: 22933 (Level up at 28000)

- Carter / Hidra, Level 4 Fighter: 13957 (Level up at 16000)

- George / Ghost Snels, Level 4 Denialist Cleric: 12257 (Level up at 18000)

- Ollie / Havarti Honeybun, Level 4 Halfling: 11700 (Level up at 16000)